


Living in the Present

by TrueBelleoftheBall



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Adventure, Chemistry, F/F, F/M, FBI AU, Romance, no time travel, still technically the "time" team
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-02-26 02:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13226118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrueBelleoftheBall/pseuds/TrueBelleoftheBall
Summary: The FBI's best analyst, one tech protégé, a second 'stay-at-home' tech, and a glorified soldier. They are the ones tasked with taking down Garcia Flynn, FBI's most wanted. It seems simple, Flynn's the bad guy, take him out. But things get so much more complicated when a mysterious force known as Rittenhouse makes itself known. Right and wrong gets turned on its head and suddenly black looks white.This is an AU, but please give it a chance.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is also posted on Fanfiction.net as well. This fic is different from the others I have posted. For one, this is an AU, and two, it is a multi-chapter fic. My life is really busy, so my time to write is limited and updating is infrequent on my part. I apologize for that, I know how frustrating that can be.   
> But here is the prologue to my fic. I'm pretty proud of this, please give it a chance.  
> All mistakes are mine.   
> Thank you for reading, please enjoy.  
> Note: I completely adore how the entire Timeless fandom just agrees that the employees of Mason Industries have a betting pool on when Wyatt and Lucy will get together.

The click of heels down the marble hallway was not in any way definitive. There was no way to tell who was wearing those heels unless one turned around and looked at the person wearing them. It could have been any number of people: Katerina, come to drag her to congratulate Team Delta Force Zero on taking another person down from the Most Wanted List, or Melissa, who would thrust food and beverage into her hand and watch her like a hawk as she devoured it, or Tina, come to give her an update or any new information to add to her board. Despite this undeniable fact that it could have been any of these people, Lucy Preston knew exactly who it was. Perhaps it was the special circumstances. Her friends knew that disturbing her in in situation was a bad idea, especially since Christopher had provisionally expelled her from OCODTF 2 or the Office of Communications and Oversight for Deployed Teams and Forces room 2. Team Delta Force Zero’s operation had filled OCODTF 1 up to almost full capacity. 

Lucy doesn’t turn from where she is slumped in her comfy office chair to face her visitor. She already knows what they had come to tell her. “The mission was a failure. He got away.” Lucy announces with a sigh.

“Well, to be more accurate, the Strike Force never laid eyes on him. As always, he’s ten steps ahead,” Agent Christopher corrects, still clicking the rest of the way to Lucy’s desk. 

“Maybe if I had been in there— “

“Nothing would have changed,” Christopher insists, cutting her off. “having you inside the room watching and on comms wouldn’t have made a difference.”

“It might have,” Lucy says, frustrated. She spins her chair around to face Christopher standing there with her button-up shirt, business jacket, pencil skirt, and heels. “I never should have told you,” Lucy bites out.

“Actually, you should have told me sooner. It was the right call, Lucy. Just like me locking the OCODTF 2 doors on you was the right call. Your safety is priority.” Christopher shoots right back.

“Did they at least get anything?” Lucy asks. Christopher shakes her head. “Damn,” Lucy mutters. “if he had left behind even one shred of evidence, I could have argued that he was only 5 steps ahead.”

“I don’t care if he’s five or ten steps ahead, because I need him to zero steps ahead. That or we need to be the ones ahead of him.” 

“He’s been at the top of the Most Wanted List for nearly a year and I don’t think we’re any closer to getting him. Sometimes it feels like I was closer at the beginning of the year,” Lucy says, her frustration resonating in her voice.

“Well, the good thing is that I plan to change that.”  
“How?” Lucy asks skeptically, her eyebrows raising. 

“By putting together a specialized team.”

“A team? That I’m going to be a part of? To go after him?” Lucy’s voice has risen two octaves by the time she asks the last question.   
“Yes.”

“To which one?”

“All three.”

“I am an analyst, that’s what I do. I see the big picture and then break it down into smaller pictures. I compile information and connect the dots, I stay down in the analyst department with my desk and my boards. The only field work I deal with is being in the OCODTF watching.”

“You’ll be trained for field work, Lucy, don’t worry. Like I said, your safety is priority.” Christopher assures her.

“It’s like you didn’t hear anything I just said.” Lucy scoffs in disbelief at Agent Christopher. 

“It’s already been approved by the director, and I’m your new Commanding Officer now. Whether you agree to be a part of this team, or want it, it’s already done.” Christopher was using her no-nonsense, strict voice that Lucy had seen snap many agents into action. 

“Fine.” Lucy concedes, knowing that there’s no way out of this. All of a sudden, Lucy feels excitement rising unbidden in her stomach. Maybe this would be the key, maybe with this new taskforce, they would finally catch him. “Who else is going to be on the team?”

“Agent Logan— “

“Wait, the Agent Logan that’s upstairs celebrating his success with Team Delta Force Zero?” Lucy asks incredulously. Everyone had heard of Agent Logan. Aside from being on Team Delta Force Zero, who had the most success rate in taking names down from the Most Wanted List, his name was a popular one from went he went off the rails due to his wife’s death four years ago. Jessica Logan’s death broke him, turned him into a shell. He spent all his time at work trying to find her killer and failing to channel his anger while he spent all his free time getting drunk until he passed out. The Director agreed to take on Jessica’s case for Wyatt, with the caveat that Wyatt agreed to stay out of it. He agreed, then immediately went back on his word. For a while, Jessica had her own board down here. Lucy remembers wishing she could join in to help a fellow agent, but being told that her work was too important. The situation got progressively worse every day until the Director himself told Wyatt that if he came to work, he would either not be allowed to enter the building in the first place, or he would be escorted out by other field agents. After that, Wyatt was absent from the FBI for a while. Then came the news that the case went cold. About a month after the announcement that the case was dropped, Wyatt made a reappearance. He was back; back as an agent, back on his team. But he was never the same. He had become more closed off and snappy, not that she knew him personally, it was just what she heard. But she knew he liked being a field agent and working with other field agents. Him working with her? No way. “The Wyatt Logan that will not like working with an analyst that has zero field experience?”

“Yes, that Wyatt. He’s not as bad as the office rumors make him out to seem. He has a bit of a rough exterior, but trust me and give him a chance. I wouldn’t be putting him on this team unless I had complete confidence in him.”

“Confidence in ability and confidence in character are two different things.” Lucy states. Wyatt could do his job well, but he could also be a jerk to work with. Christopher simply levels her with a stare. “Okay, okay. Who else is on the team?”

“Rufus Carlin will be the tech that enters the field with you while Jiya Marri will be tech support from within. Connor Mason will be a consultant. He’ll be back in forth between our team and running the science and tech division. If we need a medical examiner, I have one lined up.” Rufus Carlin? Jiya Marri? Connor Mason? Rufus was well known as the protégé of Connor Mason, hand-picked and placed on a gleaming pedestal. Lucy was aware of the bitter tone some people took on when talking about him, but as Lucy understood it, Rufus lived in poverty before Mason found him. She’d heard that Rufus worked twice as hard as anybody in the science and tech division just to prove that he belonged there.

Lucy could understand where he was coming from. Her own mother was a world-class agent from the CIA. Carol Preston was a legend and that was precisely why Lucy had chosen FBI instead of CIA. Some shadows were simply too large to even attempt to live in or crawl out from underneath.

Personally, Lucy knew that the slightly pretentious, acclaimed genius that headed the science and tech division fancied himself as a philanthropist. Rufus was not his first protégé or the first person from the science and tech division that he had handpicked and plucked from ‘bad living situations’. Taking that into account, she figured that people would be accustomed to people like Rufus in their division. Guess not. Sometimes envy is its own force of nature. 

Lastly was Jiya Marri. She didn’t know much about the girl other than she was a nerdy, well-liked tech. Well, she didn’t know much besides the knowledge she gained from endlessly giggling and gossiping tech and science agents. Apparently, one Rufus Carlin had a crush on Jiya the size of the Titanic and the iceberg it crashed into combined.

Fantastic. The entire team assembled boiled down to a solider, a traveling teach, a stay-at-home-tech, a snobby philanthropist, and her, the failed analyst that the FBI, and virtually everyone, is counting on without even knowing that she is a failure. “I don’t have the best feeling about this team,” Lucy admits softly. 

“I do.” Agent Christopher relies confidently. “I’d start packing up your things to take into your new ‘headquarters’ tomorrow,” Christopher calls over her shoulder as she click, click, clicks her way back down the hallway.


	2. The Team Assembles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for the team to assemble: Lucy Preston, Wyatt Logan, Rufus Carlin, Jiya Marri, Conor Mason, and Denise Christopher. But their first meeting, and just about every after, doesn't go as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to update this sooner, way way sooner. I forgot that I hadn't posted all the chapters I have completed on here. Sorry! Thank you to everyone who is giving this story a chance! I know that not everyone enjoys AUs, so..thanks again.  
> By the way...one week until season two!!!!!!!!!!!! The waiting is killing me. Although that Lyatt kiss in the season two promo already killed me.  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy the newest chapter!

“No. I work in the field with other field agents. I don’t do unexperienced analysts and techs,” Wyatt says forcefully.

“Well, you do now.” Christopher says.

“They have zero field experience! They are going to get themselves killed!”

“No, they’ll be with you.”

“I am one person, I can’t be protecting them at all times.”

“They will receive field training.”

“Field training?” Wyatt cannot believe his ears. “You think that they will be ready to chase Garcia Flynn with what? Two weeks of field training?”

“This discussion is over, Agent Logan.” Christopher says. “Time to meet the other members of your new team.”

“We need to talk about this before we’re attending the funerals of one of the top analysts and techs of the FBI.” Wyatt insists.

“We will not be attending their funerals, Wyatt” Christopher’s hand comes down on her polished wood desk, uncharacteristically calling Wyatt by his first name.

“There’s always a chance of attending an agent’s funeral, ma’am. Part of the job.” Wyatt reminds Christopher. Christopher’s jaw clenches.

“If we do, it won’t be because they are unprepared to go out into the field. We will discuss this in greater detail later. Go down and meet your teammates.” Christopher says, gesturing toward the door.

“I thought you were coming.”

“I will be there in about 10 minutes, now shoo, Agent Logan.” And with that, Agent Christopher slides behind her mahogany desk. Wyatt stalks to the door and throws it open. He looks down from the landing at the spread of the first floor. Groups of cubicles, desks, filing cabinets, and projectors for various teams and jobs. Wyatt sees the cluster of his previous team, Team Delta Force Zero, nearly dead center. Yesterday they had been celebrating the takedown of number 6 from the Most Wanted List. Today, it looked as if they had gotten their new assignment and were digging right in. The senior field agent had no doubt that the team would deploy and have another successful takedown in no time. Without him.

Instead, Wyatt was going to be stuck with a group of rookies. At least in his mind. Trying to turn an analyst and a tech who spent their entire careers behind desks into field agents that could take down the #1 name from the most wanted list? It sounded like they were hoping for a miracle. Well, Wyatt would be happy to inform them that miracles don’t happen.

With a heavy sigh, Wyatt trots down the stairs and makes a sharp left toward the space that would serve as the team’s ‘headquarters’. The place used to be an old records room. The filing cabinets had recently been cleared out and carried down to the archives as a more secure location. Wyatt was informed that the room had been soundproofed to ensure that no curious ears would hear random snippets of information regarding their case. Christopher and the Director obviously wanted to keep wraps on the Flynn case, which made sense because it was highly sensitive. But just yesterday, a strike team was sent out to one of the possible places Flynn could be. He was also aware that many techs, medical examiners, forensic scientists, and others were taken onto the Flynn case at times of need for differing periods of time. Now, it felt as if the Director were trying to lock away the secret of Garcia Flynn, which was impossible by now.

Wyatt shakes his head to dispel his thoughts, Christopher will give him the information he needs later, no use mulling over it. Wyatt’s feet hit the last few steps, hoping that he will be forgiven for being a little late to meet his new team.

The only problem with the room that Christopher renovated for their little team is, it is right around the corner at the bottom of the stairs. The second you turn the corner, there’s the door. The second Wyatt turns the corner there is a person. He doesn’t even get time to register what they look like before they are tumbling to the floor. The other person is smaller, but they had been hurrying, their feet moving frantically when they crashed into him. Wyatt’s back hits the carpeted floor as the person who ran into him falls on top of him. Wyatt guesses that it’s a woman by the high-pitched squeal he hears as the person falls, and he knows it’s a woman when they land on top of him and he feels curves against him. Her head, full of dark hair, lands on his collarbone and her hands crash to his chest. “Ow.” The woman groans once both of them have hit the ground. “Are… are you okay?” the woman asks as she starts lifting her head.

“I might be better once you get off of me, ma’am.” Wyatt says.

“Of… of course.” The woman scrambles to stand up, her hands grappling for purchase on Wyatt’s chest to push herself up. Once she’s up, she brushes her wavy brown hair behind her shoulders and offers Wyatt a hand before a spark of recognition lights up her dark brown eyes. Wyatt’s spark ignites at the same time as he places the woman in front of him: Lucy Preston, the analyst.

“I’m good, ma’am.” Wyatt says as he waves off her helping hand and pushes himself to his feet.

Lucy huffs as he dismisses her offer to help and crosses her arms. “You know we’re pretty much the same age, so you can just stop calling me ma’am.” Lucy says with an irritated tone, her head tilted slightly up to look at him. Unbidden, the side of Wyatt’s mouth pulls up as he looks down at Lucy. Lucy looks unsure of what to make of his smirk as her brows crinkle just the tiniest bit.

“What were you doing running away from the room we’re supposed to be meeting in?” Wyatt asks.

“Oh, I was going to get you, actually.” Wyatt raises his eyebrows. “Turns out that Mr. Mason is not the most patient man, or just likes punctuality, I’m not really sure,” Lucy explains, sounding a bit nervous.

“Good thing you ran into me, then,” Wyatt says, smirking as she opens her mouth. He doesn’t give her a chance to speak before he gestures back the way she came. “Shall we?”

Wyatt watches as Lucy’s teeth snap together and her jaw clenches. She turns on her heels and stalks back toward the door. We’ll get along great, Wyatt thinks sarcastically as he follows her. When she gets to the door, she stays to hold it open for Wyatt. For some reason, Wyatt cannot resist doing something that he knows will irk the analyst. He places his hand above hers on the door and gestures for her to enter. “After you, ma’am.” Wyatt watches with a smirk as Lucy rolls her eyes before entering the room. Wyatt walks in after her and lets the door close behind him.

Okay, all he knew was that they were clearing out the filing cabinets, but no one told him that they were putting an addition on. As an FBI agent, how did he miss the construction? The soundproof walls, the sudden hush on this new team. Agent Christopher must have had them come in after hours or on days off to put the addition on. It would have been easy to miss, no one has come into the room since the files were moved. Well, except for Christopher’s new team coming in to situate themselves. Lucy’s desk was easily identifiable due to the corkboards next to it filled with pictures of Garcia Flynn, evidence, locations, and all they had on the criminal. Multicolored lines stood out over the whole thing, connecting pieces in an attempt the make the puzzle clearer. Two other desks had computers and other unidentifiable tech stuff littering the surface area, but he couldn’t determine which belonged to which tech. One had a Star Wars coffee mug on proud display while the one next to it boasted a Star Trek coffee mug.

Then it came to the actual people in the room. He had heard of every one of them, but now they were face to face. He already met Lucy, and ticked her off more than once. In his opinion, she looked like she was dressed as some sort of professor or teacher. The other woman in the room, Jiya, has her dark hair down and clipped back over one ear. She wears a pencil skirt and a blazer that covers the majority of her—was that a League of Draven T-shirt? Wyatt guesses that everyone has their own brand of professionalism. Rufus, one of the African American men in the room, dresses more like Wyatt would expect. White, button-down shirt tucked into slacks. Connor Mason himself was decked out in a full suit with the overhead lights shining down on his bald head. “Wyatt Logan, I presume?” Connor Mason says in a prim British accent.

“Yes, sir.” Wyatt confirms, putting his hands behind his back.

“Connor Mason, I’ll be a consultant on this team, going back and forth between here and my division.” Wyatt nods, having already heard that information from Christopher.

“Hi, I’m Jiya, Jiya Marri,” Jiya steps forward, extending her hand. Wyatt unclasps his hands to give hers a firm shake. “I’ll be working from our home base, handling the tech aspect from his side.” Jiya steps back when she’s finished as Rufus Carlin steps forward.

“Rufus Carlin, I’ll be handling the tech in the field,” he says as he shakes Wyatt’s hand. A fine sheen of sweat coats Rufus’s forehead, giving away how nervous he is.

“Lucy Preston,” Lucy says next to Wyatt’s surprise. He hadn’t expected her to introduce herself since they already met, albeit unprofessionally and unofficially. “Analyst and expert on Garcia Flynn.” Lucy hangs back, not offering her hand to shake.

“Fantastic,” a voice sounds from behind Wyatt and he turns to see Christopher closing the door. “Now that we are all acquainted, allow me to explain a few things about this team. First, Garcia Flynn is number one on our most wanted list and he has been there for far too long. I talked to the director about making an exclusive team to track him and the director agreed. Lucy Preston is the absolute authority on Garcia Flynn, she knows him better than anyone else, so you listen to her about Flynn with no arguments. Is that clear?” Christopher looks at each member of the team, watching them nod before continuing. “Wyatt Logan is the only member of this team besides me with field experience. He will be training Agents Preston and Carlin for the field. In the field, his priority is to protect Agent Preston and Carlin along with bringing Garcia Flynn in. Rufus Carlin and Jiya Marri are two of the hardest working members of Connor Mason’s tech division. They will handle technology in and out of the field. Connor Mason will be consulting, moving between the team’s headquarters and the tech division. My role, is to oversee you all, make sure you are properly trained, fulfill your roles, and bring in Garcia Flynn. From now on, anything involving Garcia Flynn does not leave this room nor this team, is that understood?” Christopher looks each agent in the eye, ensuring their understanding. “Good. Tomorrow morning Agents Logan, Preston, and Carlin will report to the shooting range for their first round of training. Now, Agent Preston, find us a location on Flynn or somewhere we can hit to get the information. Agents Carlin and Marri, work with Mason on isolating a network for the team. Agent Logan, look over the files for Agents Preston and Carlin to determine how to best prepare them for the field. Dismissed.” Christopher announced. Then, she turned on one three-inch black heel and left the team’s headquarters. For a second, the entire team stood there looking stunned. Except for Connor Mason who sprang into action.

“Well, don’t just stand there, Rufus and Jiya, you’re with me,” The British man waves the two techs over to the technology laden desks to work. Rufus and Jiya slide into their seats and boot up their computers as Mason pulls a chair up behind them. Lucy goes over to her corkboards, lifting a box from under her desk and placing it on top. He watches as she extracts pictures and information, most likely from yesterday’s operation. Wyatt walks toward the desk next to hers, the desk that can only be his. He doesn’t keep personal belongings on his desk, the only personal touch is the well-worn, well-folded picture of Jess in his desk drawer. The rest are simply office necessities. He sighs as he sits down in his desk and opens Agent Preston’s file. He views physical tests, marksman ship, health records, reflexives, etc.

The rest of the day passes in a blur as each member works on their respective tasks. By the time the numbers and words start blurring in front of Wyatt’s eyes, it’s past 7:30. He looks up to see Rufus and Jiya shutting down their computers and Mason rubbing his eyes. They all worked overtime. Wyatt glances over to Lucy to see her still hard at work. Right now, she stands in front of the board, arms crossed as she evaluates all the pieces. He watches her bend over her desk to scribble something on an index card before she straightens and tacks it up. Wyatt puts the file back together in a next pile before leaving them on his desk. He rounds his desk, but Lucy doesn’t take any notice, too absorbed in her work. Wyatt glances at her computer, seeing a document with a list of locations. The opening of the door splits the silence and Wyatt looks up to see Jiya, Rufus, and Mason exiting the headquarters. They wave on their way out and Wyatt returns it.

Wyatt turns his attention back to the brunette who didn’t even notice her co-workers leaving. Did this happen when she was down with the other analysists? Did she even know what time it was? Would she leave if he didn’t remind her? Deciding he couldn’t just leave her there, Wyatt walks up to her and taps her on the shoulder. Lucy shoots into the air, whirling around with wide eyes. “Wyatt,” she gasps, her hand over her heart. “Sorry, I just get so caught up in my work, what is it?” she asks.

“It’s 7:40, I figured you might—“

“7:40?” Lucy repeats, panicked. “Oh no, no, no. I promised Amy I wouldn’t work late today.” Wyatt was left stunned as the whirlwind of brown hair dashed around, throwing sheets over her corkboards to cover her work, shutting her computer down, and grabbing her coat. “Thank you, Wyatt. See… see you tomorrow!” Lucy calls as she runs out the door. Wyatt blinks. That was an interesting first day on Team Catch Garcia Flynn.  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Lucy may have been in a rush to get home, but she was not going to speed or drive recklessly, no way. Not since her accident. She was already late, she wasn’t going to risk dying in a car crash to try and be less late. When she had her car parked safely in the driveway, she throws her door open and hurries inside. “Amy! I’m home.” She calls out. Lucy walks to her Mom’s room. Well, not her actual room, her makeshift hospital room. Carefully, Lucy extracts a jumbo Snickers bar from her purse and puts it on the table next her mom. “Hey mom.” Lucy says the greeting knowing that her mom won’t respond, leaning down to press a kiss to her mother’s cheek. When Lucy straightens, she spies Amy sitting in a chair across from their Mom.

“Hey, you,” Amy greets, a small smile on her tired face.

“Amy, I am so sorry, I lost track of time—“

“I know, Lucy. It’s you. Don’t worry, I had Mom to keep me company.” Amy reassures her although it does nothing to lessen Lucy’s guilt.  
“So, has the hospital called?” Lucy asks, trying to seem causal.

“No, if they did, it would have been the first thing you heard about when you entered the house,” Amy says, slightly exasperated.

“Sorry, it’s just—” Lucy cuts off, looking up to blink back the sudden tears. “We need Mom to get into this clinical trial.”

“I know,” Amy says, getting up from her chair. She rounds the bed, one hand skimming the blanket covering their Mom as if she’s connected to her. “But, Lucy, I don’t think she’s getting in.”

“Don’t… don’t say that, okay? That’s giving up on her.”

“That is not giving up on her, but look at her,” Amy demands, putting her hands on either side of her head to turn her towards their mother. “Look at her. They’ll take people they think they might have a fair chance of saving. Mom, she hasn’t been conscious for what? A few months? We have to accept the reality. Mom is dying of cancer and the chances of her pulling through… they’re not good.” Tears trickle down the faces of both sisters. Lucy had known that the chances of her mother getting into the clinical trial were incredibly slim, but she tried to block it out. She couldn’t think about her Mother dying, not so soon after her father. Nowadays her life resembled an ancient portrait, stuck in the same pose and slowly but surely deteriorating.

“We… we just,” Lucy stutters, struggling with finally facing the truth. Her body weight drag her down as she supports herself on her Mom’s bed. The bed her Mom will probably die on. “… have to accept the facts, I guess.” Lucy whispers, her voice barely audible.

“Yeah, we do.” Amy agrees quietly, hunching her body over to wrap hers around her sister’s. “Sometimes that’s all you can do.” The sisters stay enveloped in each other’s arms for a few minutes, the atmosphere heavy and laden with sorrow and regret. “Alright,” Amy declares and the silence shatters into a thousand pieces, the shards flying harmlessly to the ground. Lucy knows the shards of silence will pierce and cut and borrow inside her when that silence is caused by the stopping of her Mom’s heart. “how about you tell me about your day with this new, exciting change of scenery? Which, by the way, that is a crap description of whatever is going on.” Amy laughs as she stands up and walks into the kitchen.

“You know I can’t talk about it!” Lucy laughs at her younger sister. Laughter fills the air as the sisters talk. For the rest of the night, the two Prestons create a temporary world of laughter, smiles, and sisterly love, a world devoid of dead fathers, terminally ill mothers, and the evasive ghost of Garcia Flynn.  
\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Rufus walks into the shooting range early in the morning, holding his federal issued gun. He looks around looking for Wyatt to find the shooting range…empty. No people, no gunshots, no flying bullets. Only targets, guns, Wyatt, and… is that Jiya?

Rufus’s breath stutters out of him in an uneasy rhythm when he spots her. Her dark hair is pulled into a ponytail today, away from her face. Jiya rarely ever put her hair up, preferring to keep it down. With the exception of the occasional braid, but that still draped itself over her neck. Rufus liked the new look, liked getting a clearer look at her face, liked seeing more of her olive skin. Today, she wears a Star Trek T-shirt tuck into slacks and it makes Rufus smile. No one ever came up to Jiya and asked her to dress more professionally. It was just so completely Jiya and so endearing. At least, it was to him. When she turns to face Wyatt, Rufus spots old converse beneath the slacks and his smile widens.

Rufus begins to walk toward the pair when the important question bowls into him. What is Jiya doing here? With a gun? Christopher said Lucy and he were being trained for fieldwork, not Jiya. His steps falter for a second before Jiya turns around and gives Rufus a small wave and smile. Rufus makes it over to the two near the far end of the shooting range. “Hey, guys. What’s with the emptiness?” Rufus asks. The question that really gnaws at him is Jiya’s presence, but he chickened out of asking. Just like with everything else when it came to her.

“This one is closed off to everyone but our team until training’s over. Christopher and the Director are really keeping the team under wraps,” Wyatt says, peering over Rufus’s shoulder, most likely looking for the last member of their team.

“Oh,” Rufus says, shifting uncomfortably as he silently urges himself to buck up and ask about Jiya. Come on, Barrack Obama was just president, Rufus thinks, this isn’t the Dark Ages of discrimination where black people faced far worse for less than asking about a girl they liked. Rufus clears his throat. “What are you doing here, Jiya?”

“Me? Apparently Christopher and the Director spoke and decided to stick me with field training as well. They say it’s just in case two people with our expertise are needed in the field,” Jiya speaks easily, showing none of Rufus’s shaky nervousness.

Right at the end of Jiya’s statement, the heavy door opens and Lucy enters. Her wavy hair is gathered at the base of her neck in a bun, prompting Rufus to think, is it a requirement for females to wear their hair up in the gun range?

“Last one here?” Wyatt asks Lucy, looking like he is examining the gun in front of him when Rufus can see his shockingly blue eyes looking up for a reaction.

He gets one as Lucy throws back, “Yet still on time.” Rufus saw their exchange yesterday; Lucy holding the door open, Wyatt taking her place, saying something to her that had her rolling her eyes and striding into the room in front of him. Wyatt’s remaining smirk gave Rufus the impression that these two were going to have fun needling each other.

Looking at them, hearing the rumors about them, they seemed like polar opposites.

If Wyatt was the North Pole than Lucy was the South Pole.

If Wyatt was night than Lucy was day.

But they also seemed intertwined. Like the red and white on a candy cane. Two separate colors twisting around the same peppermint treat. Somehow, their differences didn’t place them on opposite ends of the Earth, but on the same candy stick (And wow, was that really the metaphor he was using?).

Tension between the two was palpable the second they were in the same room together. Fun. At least that meant they wouldn’t start putting holes in each other. He hoped.

“Alright, let’s begin,” Wyatt announces. “This is your first day of field training. We are starting with basic marksmanship and handling your gun. Anytime you go into the field, your gun will be with you. Every second you’re in the field, your gun should be with you. If it’s not, that’s a problem.” Wyatt says. No kidding, Rufus thinks. He’s having a hard enough time envisioning himself holding a gun outside of this room. Shooting at paper was one thing, people was another. “Does everyone remember the basics of a gun? How to use it?” Wyatt asks.

Rufus and Jiya give simple nods while Lucy pipes up. “We take a Marksmanship Test twice a year and are required to be in the shooting range practicing at least once a month,” Lucy states, clearly unimpressed with Wyatt’s question. The monthly shooting-at-imaginary-people-and-almost-going-deaf-from-the-sound-of-gunshots-even-with-mufflers-on was the least favorite part of Rufus’s month. But every agent had to be prepared in the event that terrorists or something of the like broke into the building.

Wyatt shrugs at Lucy. “Just want to be sure, ma’am.”

Lucy’s shoulders tense and she stalks past Wyatt for mufflers. She clasps them over her ears and stands behind the counter. She pushes the safety off and lifts the gun, using both hands. The bullets ring out and hit their intended target. None hit the bullseye, but two litter the ring around it. All her shots hit the target. “Not bad.” Wyatt comments, examining the target. Wyatt walks up to Lucy and grabs her hand. He places two fingers on her wrist, feeling her pulse. “Your heart’s racing,” he tells Lucy. “you want to try and control your heart rate, it’ll make your shots more accurate.” Wyatt drops her hand, while Lucy looks slightly stunned from having Wyatt so close to her. “Rufus, you’re up.” Wyatt says as he waves him over. Oh boy.  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
“They did not leave anything behind, Agent Preston, so no, I will not be sending you on a wild goose chase.” Christopher says, sitting at her desk with Lucy across from her.

“Maybe the Strike Team missed something.”

“They scoured the building, nothing was there.”

“There could be. They might not have known the right places to look. I know Garcia Flynn better than anyone, if anyone can find anything that was left behind, it’s me,” Lucy pauses before continuing. “Look, I know why you haven’t let me on a site where Flynn has been since… since I told you, but I need to go to this one. I need anything and everything I can get. Please, Christopher. You want to catch him just as badly as I do, maybe more. Aren’t you willing to let me search one empty building if it could lead to his location and capture?” Lucy pleads and unspoken words weigh down the air between them. Both women know what Flynn could have left at the site, but neither verbalize it.

“Fine,” Christopher concedes. “I’ll come down and have Agent Marri set up the comms. You, Carlin, and Logan are going together, fully armed.” Christopher stands.

“What?” Lucy asks, shocked. She stares up at Christopher from where she stays sitting down. “No… I mean… I should go alone.”

“Out the question, Agent Preston. Agents Carlin and Logan go with you or you don’t go at all.”  
\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
“Are you trying to get them killed?” Wyatt exclaims, bursting into Christopher’s office without knocking.

“Mind your tone Agent Logan, I am your commanding officer.” Christopher says calmly, her pen scribbling over some paper that Wyatt couldn’t care less about right now.

“We have had one morning of field training. One morning and all we did was marksmanship. They are not ready for a field mission.” Wyatt argues.

“It’s intel gathering, searching the place for anything Flynn left behind. Agent Preston’s done it before, you’ll be fine.” Christopher counters.

“If it’s only intel gathering, then why are we bringing guns, using comms?”

“To be safe. Surveillance left by the Strike Team shows that the building is still vacant, satellite imagining backs it up.” Christopher assures him, her pen still moving, driving Wyatt wild. He wants to stomp up to her, take the pen, break it half, and make Christopher see sense. He doesn’t even care if his hands get stained with ink.

“Flynn,” Wyatt grits out forcefully, “is a psychopath. He is unpredictable. We have no idea that he won’t burst in there guns blazing if he remembers he left something behind.”

“He won’t. Lucy knows Flynn and she wouldn’t have asked to go back if she thought Flynn would come back.”

“Compiling information about Flynn doesn’t mean she knows him.”

“Agent Logan,” Christopher says sternly, looking up at him, that infernal pen stopping in its tracks. “that is an analyst’s job. To know who they are analyzing,” Christopher’s eyes soften a fraction. “I know you’re worried about them, but they’ll be fine. They might not be fully trained for the field, but they are clever, absolutely brilliant at what they do. If by some cataclysmic event, something does happen, they’ll think of a way out of it. They’ll be able to think of solutions you and I wouldn’t think of given ten years. There is more to being in the field than just muscle memory. Now go on downstairs and prepare to leave.” Christopher dismisses him, her pen picking up where it left off.

Wyatt stalks away, leaving not completely satisfied. He stomps all the way downstairs and into the Team’s headquarters. He observes the scene in front of him.

Rufus is strapped into a bulletproof vest, Jiya by his side as she adjusts the comm in his ear. Mason is on his other side, looking like he’s either comforting or calming down the younger man. Probably the second.

Lucy stands by her desk, her bulletproof vest on without all the buckles snapped and pulled tight. He watches her contort the side of her body as she struggles to snap a buckle into place.

A smirk pulls at the side of his mouth and he’s striding across the floor before he even tells his feet to move. “Let me help.” Wyatt says, startling Lucy as she jumps in surprise. Wyatt snaps the remaining buckles into place and pulls them as tight as he can. “There.” Wyatt declares, looking up from his task. Lucy’s dark brown eyes stop him in his tracks. They’re wells, deep and endless and beautiful. Emotion swirls in them, part surprise and something else he can’t quite identify. The moment stretches on and on as her eyes search his although he has no idea what she is looking for.

A throat clearing startles Wyatt and he steps back blinking. Jiya stands behind him, her shirt looking strangely out of place. Her brown eyes flick between Wyatt and Lucy and her hand lifts to display a comm. “I need to put this in Lucy’s ear,” she says.

“Of course.” Wyatt steps back and moves over to his desk to sling his bulletproof vest over his dress shirt and when he looks back, Lucy’s eyes are still on him.  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
“You’re joking, right?” Rufus demands, his head bent close to Mason’s.

“Do I look like I’m in a joking?” Connor Mason asks irritably.

“No.” Rufus refuses.

“Rufus, you will do this. You don’t understand these people, how deep I’m in with them or what they’ll do to you if you don’t do what they want,” Connor’s voice trembles slightly and Rufus’s stomach rolls. He remembers being younger, the days when he was poor.

A dirty, small house and a half-full stomach. Then Connor Mason swooped in like a white knight, offering Rufus everything. He sent him to the academy, provided for his brother and mom, cared for him like a son. Even now, Rufus couldn’t imagine what would make Connor this afraid, this desperate.

“Even if I wanted to,” Rufus reasons, “I couldn’t. Jiya would pick up the frequency of the recorder.”

“It operates on a special frequency I created. Don’t worry about that, I’ll handle things here as long as you take the device and record them.”

“They’re my team, Connor, and you’re asking me to betray them on our first mission together,” Rufus knows Connor’s afraid, but how can he betray these people? Jiya? Lucy, who just wants to do the right thing? Wyatt, who looks like he’s about to go off to war as he preps his gun? Christopher, who believes in this team, in him.

“I am, because if you don’t, we are not the only people they’ll hurt. They target those close to you; your mother, Kevin, Jiya. And don’t think they’re above hurting the people on this team,” Mason holds out the device, so little yet capable of such damage. A feeling boils up inside him. A feeling that one day this little device is going to create shockwaves, in his team, in his life, in everything he knows or thought he knew. He doesn’t see another answer. Not yet. He takes the device.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
“What are we looking for anyway?” Wyatt asks, his gun drawn.

“Anything connected to Flynn, and you can put that away, we won’t be needing it.” Lucy answers. He’d had his gun drawn since they entered the big warehouse. She figured he considered himself the protector of the team, especially with her and Rufus’s lack of training, but the gun being out was too much. The image in the corner of her eye made her whip her head around and look over her shoulder like danger was just around the corner.

Wyatt makes a noise deep in his throat, but he holsters the gun. Lucy’s muscles relaxed, her shoulders rolling back. Where, where, where, the question bounces around the inside of her skull.

He wouldn’t make it easy, not somewhere someone else could find it. He would make her work for it. She was loathe to admit it, but she enjoyed it a bit. It wasn’t easy, it was challenging, it made her brain work. Her enjoyment of the task and the chase spiked her frustration. This is probably what Christopher is afraid of.

Lucy sighs heavily. “Look everywhere. Call me if you find something,” she throws at her two teammates, almost absentmindedly as she surveys the scene. The warehouse is a simple, single-story building. It has an L-shape, one hallway going left as the other ends. Empty, no tables, nothing on the walls, no shelves, no storage containers, nothing.

Lucy starts down the warehouse, turning the corner to the second hallway. As she walks, she reaches up to shut off her comm. She knows Christopher will give her hell for it later. Unsafe is what she’ll say. But if she finds what she thinks she will, the team can’t know.

Lucy keeps walking down the hallway when she hears the creaking beneath her. Hardwood! Warehouse floors are typically concrete or linoleum. Lucy crouches down, examining the floor. It’s new. Hardly well-worn which it should have been if warehouse worked trekked on it all day long. This piece of hardwood creaked, but did the others? Lucy stands and walks away, down and back. Only that piece. Crouching down again, Lucy works at prying the creaking piece up.

Lucy tries to jam her nails underneath, using them as leverage. It doesn’t work and all she receives is a broken nail on her left hand. Some small part of her thought once she found it, getting it up would be easy. If Flynn put something underneath, the piece should be loose. But then again, it’s Flynn. Lucy scrabbles with the piece of hardwood, her finger slicing open at the effort as red blood blooms and smears over the floor. Lucy grunts, ignoring the pain in her fingers, as she keeps trying. Again, and again, and again. Then the tell. The piece gives slightly. Excitement buzzes in her head. She found it! With renewed purpose, she grips the piece, pulling with all her might in her eagerness to get to the puzzle piece underneath. Finally the piece comes up.

Lucy discards the piece of hardwood to the side carelessly. She peers into the narrow hole, letting the fluorescent lights from overhead flood the space.

And there is it.

A manila folder.

And a message on top. A scrap of paper with pen written on it, his handwriting familiar to her now.

Better luck next time.  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
To say Denise Christopher would be irritated would be an understatement.

Rittenhouse.

Of course the blasted folder Flynn left would have Rittenhouse junk in it. She shouldn’t have expected anything more. Wishful thinking, that was what it was. But Flynn had been in the game too long, he didn’t slip up, not with this. But she knew he would slip up eventually. When he did, Denise had confidence that Lucy would catch it and then they would catch him.

Denise was at least glad that Lucy was able to keep the name Rittenhouse from the rest of her teammates. She had stuck the folder under her bulletproof vest, keeping it clamped between her body and the vest. She told Wyatt and Rufus that the cuts on her fingers were from trying to pry up what she thought was a loose floorboard, that she thought Flynn may have accidently left something behind there. She told them that she didn’t find anything and her efforts were futile.

As soon as Lucy got back to headquarters, she zipped up the stairs and to her office. That was when Denise got the news.  
Rittenhouse.

She hated that name.

Lucy would put whatever information Flynn gave her on her Rittenhouse corkboard, the one that Denise kept hidden away in the ‘closet’ in her office. No one could see the board except herself and Lucy, not since their first mention of Rittenhouse. Not since they learned what Rittenhouse really was.

Not since they knew that Rittenhouse was as dangerous as Garcia Flynn, maybe more.

Denise Christopher was no fool. You don’t have a network as big as Flynn and Rittenhouse did without having sources in high places. There was no doubt in her mind that this very building had moles that leaked information to Rittenhouse or Flynn.

Rooting out the moles, though, that was the real problem. Lucy’s new team would not hear the name Rittenhouse until Christopher was 100 percent certain that none of them were moles.

Nowadays, anyone could be anything, willing or not. But Christopher would find out who they were, willing or not.  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Exhaustion.

Sweeping through her body, settling in her bones, inhaling it like oxygen.

More Rittenhouse. That was all the folder was, that blasted organization that Flynn thought he could get her to tear down. Rittenhouse was only useful to her if she gleaned any information about Flynn from them. He was too careful for that, though.

Tomorrow, she would be in bright and early, earlier than she needed to be for training, so that she could go up into Christopher’s office, lock herself in the ‘closet’, and give herself a headache going through the file Flynn left.

With the daunting thought of the morning to come, Lucy actually left work on time. Sleep was a much needed commodity if she was going to get through tomorrow morning and make progress.

Lucy pulls into the driveway, her lids drooping at the welcoming thought of her fluffy mattress, soft pillow, and thick, fuzzy blanket. She trudges up the walk to the house and pushes the door open. “Amy,” she calls through the house, her voice giving away her tiredness. “I’m home.”

No response.

Lucy pauses, her hand on the banister and her gut tugging her up toward her bed. But a bigger part of her tugs her back downstairs to look for Amy. She always replies. Always.

Lucy finds herself wide awake as she steps into the kitchen, her eyes snapping open she quickly that the light burns.

The sight in front of her burns worse.

Amy, bloody and beaten and tied to a chair. Ropes wind tightly around her wrists and Lucy sees the blood welling up underneath. A red handkerchief gags her younger sister and her head lolls to the side. Her eyes are open, almost unseeing although the left one is swollen and starting to bruise. Her shirt is ripped, large swathes of skin showing along with the long gashes and cuts slashed across her body. The most serious wound seems to be a gash on her shoulder; large and deep and dripping a steady stream of thick hot blood down Amy’s arm to pool at the leg of the chair. Her jeans aren’t faring much better than the shirt, neither is the skin underneath. The kitchen table in front of her is splattered with blood.

Lucy feels a scream building in her throat.

A shadow steps into the only light in the room, the light cast by the small chandelier above the kitchen table. Above Amy. The scream dies in Lucy’s throat.

Someone’s here. The person who did this to Amy is still here. Lucy needs to be smart, to remain rational. But she can’t stop the dread from filling up her body. Nor the tears from spilling over.

“Lucy Preston,” the voice rasps. “I’ve been waiting for you.” It’s a man, a stranger with scars crisscrossing his face, but that is all Lucy can get from a glance. She’s afraid to look away from Amy. The world narrows down to her little sister, her dying little sister.

Air rushes back to her lungs and she speaks, crying out frantically. “Amy, Amy! Amy, look at me! Amy!"

“She’ll be fine…” the voice responds. “if you answer my questions. If you answer my questions, I’ll leave and you can get her to a hospital.”

“Amy!” Lucy shouts.

Suddenly, a flash of silver cuts through the air. A knife, a very, very large, sharp knife sticks right out of Amy’s hand. Lucy screams. Amy jerks in her seat and her eyes flit around hazily, the first sign of life. “I suggest that you start paying attention to me and not your sister, her life is in my hands.” The voice growls.

“Amy!” Lucy’s breathing hard, ducking her head to try and catch Amy’s eye. “It’s going to be all right, it’s going to be fine.”

A pale hand on the knife twists it in Amy’s hand. Lucy sobs and watches the ripping flesh with horror and growing hysteria. Her knees shake and knock together and she idly thinks that it’s a wonder she hadn’t collapsed yet. Then she realizes she did. She collapsed into the kitchen chair with the blood-splattered table and Amy directly across from her. “It’s not going to be all right,” the man barks out, twisting and twisting and twisting the knife.

Lucy’s drowning in a monsoon of tears, Amy barely visible anymore. “Please,” she begs, her eyes flicking up to the scarred man. “Please, don’t hurt her, I’ll—I’ll tell you anything you want”

“Garcia Flynn!”

“What?” Lucy asks, her mind a disastrous maelstrom. That name was so far from her mind that she’s shocked when it falls from the lips of the stranger in front of her.

“What do you know about him?” the stranger demands.

Lucy swallows, trying to arrange her thoughts in a coherent order as she stares at Amy. Poor, little, bleeding Amy. “He—He used to be an NSA agent. Deceased wife and daughter—“

“Yes, yes, I know that. What else? The things other wouldn’t know.”

“I don’t—don’t know what you’re talking about, please.” Lucy sobs.

“What about Rittenhouse. What does he know about Rittenhouse?” The voices is screaming now, but nothing is loud enough to drown out the screams in Lucy’s head.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Lucy cries, her eyes forever fixed on the life seeping out of her sister.  
Flash. The silver of the knife flashes as the man yanks it out of Amy’s hand. Blood spurts up from the hole in her hand, flowing fast, too fast. The man sticks the knife in the table in front of Lucy, the blade still slick with Amy’s blood. He leans over the table, hand still gripping the handle of the knife, and he blocks Amy from Lucy’s view. “Find Garcia Flynn,” he growls. “Find him and put him down or your little sister, and many more, are dead.” With those final words, the man left, strolling out of the kitchen like he had all the time in the world.

“Amy!” Lucy screams, as soon as the man moves away. She stands up and knocks the chair she was sitting on over. “Amy, Amy, Amy,” she repeats as she picks at the knots tying Amy’s ankles and wrists to the chair. Her fingers split back open and her blood mingles with Amy’s on the ropes. There’s no time for this. Without hesitation, Lucy reaches up and grabs the knife sticking out of the table. She slashes through the bonds, almost throwing up at using the knife that was used to hurt Amy, to free her. When the last rope falls away, Amy slumps forward, knocking into the table and smearing her blood on it. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” Lucy shoves the table away, catching Amy as she slumps into her arms. “Amy, Amy!” she shouts, cradling her, turning her so that her face is to the ceiling, to her.

Her eyes are closed. When did that happen? No, no, no, no. Lucy eases Amy onto her folded legs and rips off her shirt, kneeling in her kitchen in only a bra. Taking the wadded-up fabric, she presses it to Amy’s hand. But her shoulder is still seeping. Lucy’s breath rushes in and out, in and out in an fast tempo. Her hand reaches into her pant pocket and pulls out her phone.

Her hands tremble as she dials 911, blood streaking across the screen.

“911, what’s your emergency?” The voice asks. Lucy sobs desperately into the phone.

The screaming of ambulance sirens don’t come soon enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave kudos if you liked, and I would love some comments!  
> I'll try to do better at getting my next chapter up sooner. No promises though.  
> (One week!!!!!!!!!)


	3. 24 hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team has to deal with the reprecussions of an attack on one of their own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for giving this fic a chance!!! I love every little kudos and review. I deeply apoligize for not getting this chapter up eariler. I had it finished, becuase it's up on fanficition.net, but I forgot that I didn't have this one fully updated.   
> BTW: when I saw that angellwings was reading my fic and had commented, I probably let out a noise akin to a pterodactyl squeal. I love every single one of your fics, angellwings. Thank you so much for reading mine!!!!!  
> Please tell me if anyone seems OOC.   
> All mistakes are my own, and of course, I do not own Timeless.

Chaos.

That was the only fitting description of the scene Wyatt saw unfolding in front of him when he shoved the hospital doors open. It seemed that he got there the same time the ambulance carrying...whoever was hurt did. A call from Agent Christopher had told Wyatt that he needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible. He ignored the speed limit and ran red lights. He remembers the minute he knew the situation was far worse than he thought. When he questioned Christopher, it seemed that for the first time Christopher was not withholding information, she didn't have it. She said Lucy texted her the word emergency with the name of the hospital and that was it. The call was brief because she needed to inform the rest of the team.

The commotion draws Wyatt eyes when he pushes through the doors.

Lucy. Hair matted with blood, hands covered with blood, dried blood on her slacks, blood splattered on her face, blood everywhere. The only semi-clean garment was a zip-up hoodie that Lucy was wearing. Patches of blood on the hoodie confirm Wyatt's assumption that underneath the top layer, her shirt contains an alarming amount of blood.

For a split second, it feels as if someone has reached down into Wyatt's lungs and stolen his breath. He itches to dash over to Lucy and make sure she's okay. He knows it's irrational: Lucy's walking around and clearly fine, not to mention that he barely knows her. But knowing that he's being irrational doesn't make the need dissipate, and he still has to dig his heels into the solid ground to stop himself from bounding across the hospital to her. When Wyatt catches sight of the person on the stretcher next to her, he feels the need to run over to Lucy for an entirely different reason. This young woman on the stretcher is the source of the blood. He doesn't know her relation to Lucy yet, but his heart aches. The ache comes from deep inside, buried and caged in with Jess's grave, of knowing what it feels like losing the one person you swore you wouldn't be able to live without.

If Lucy was coated in blood, this person was nearly drowning in it. Blood streaks the girl's (he sees long hair and guesses it's a girl, but he's not sure) hair and her face is more battered and bruised than bloody but splotches show up every now and again. A large wad of gauze covers her shoulder, bloody gauze. The wound bled straight through. Another bloody piece of gauze is wrapped around the girl's hand. Her clothes are torn and splattered with blood, some places soaked. Cuts, bruises, gashes, and the like decorate the girl's body. Wyatt can tell from her appearance that the situation is not good, but if he needed any more confirmation, the doctors and paramedics speaking frantically overhead as they wheel her away give him it.

Wyatt feels a blast of cold night air as the doors open behind him. A gasp. From the corner of his eye, Wyatt sees Jiya come to an abrupt halt beside him. Her hand comes up to her mouth and tears instantly spill from her eyes. She's caught sight of Lucy and the girl.

Lucy is keeping pace with them, tears still running down her face, her eyes puffy from an extended period of crying. At one point, a paramedic breaks off and holds Lucy back. Wyatt knows what they're telling her. They're saying they will do everything they can for the girl, they will try their hardest to save her, but Lucy needs to stay back and let them work. "Please, please," Lucy begs, her voice cracking. "she's my sister, please, I need to be with her." Despite her argument, Lucy willing goes with the paramedic as they tug her over to a chair in the waiting room and push her down into it. They crouch down in front of her, tell her something else, and then they are rushing the way Lucy's sister went. Wyatt watches as Lucy's head sags and she stares at her hands. He wonders if she notices the sheer amount of blood on them. Her sister's blood. He doesn't think so. If she did, she'd probably in the bathroom trying to scrub it away and down the drain.

"Lucy?" the call pierces the air of the waiting room, and Wyatt whips his head around to see Agent Christopher enter. Wyatt's gaze falls back to Lucy when he sees her stand. From where he's standing, he can clearly see the emotion in her eyes.

The sadness, the horror, the fear quickly being taken over by bubbling, boiling, glowing anger.

Then comes the explosion. Lucy's shouting at Christopher, using her blood-stained hands to wildly gesture. Christopher is walking briskly towards her, trying to contain her. Another blast of night air and Rufus is stumbling into the hospital, Mason right behind him. Christopher and Lucy's words blur together and overlap and Wyatt only catches words and sounds until he finally hears Christopher say loudly, but still not yelling, "Not here."

"Not here? Not here? I don't care where the hell we talk about this, my sister is dying and Garcia Flynn—" Lucy looks crazed.

"This a matter of national security—"

"It's personal now." Lucy declares. Both women are face to face, standing their ground. When Wyatt first met Lucy Preston, he didn't think of her as terrifying, as someone scary or intimidating at all. But now, now she looks terrifying.

A clerk from behind the desk in the waiting room scurries out from behind his post. His eyes are wide and he looks slightly at a loss for what to do. He clears his throat, "Excuse me is there a problem?" he asks even though there clearly is.

Christopher barely looks at him as her hand dives into the pocket of her long coat and she pulls out her badge. She flips it open to show the clerk. "FBI." She says. "We need a private room to discuss matters of national security."  
\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few minutes later, Christopher, Rufus, Lucy, Mason, Jiya, and Wyatt are all in a private room at the hospital, vacant from any patients.

"This was Flynn?" Christopher asks Lucy. Lucy is slumped against a wall, all the fight that had been boiling out of her in the waiting room simply gone.  
Her sister. Bloody, beaten, barely alive. Her sister, here in this hospital where they are trying to save her life.

"It had to be," Lucy whispers, leaning her head back against the wall, fresh tears following the dried tear tracks on her face.

"What did the person look like?" Christopher asks.

"Male, scars on this face, I think darkish hair… I don't know, my attention was elsewhere, on my sister." Lucy says, irritation leaking into her voice. Amy was tied up and bleeding to death in front of her and she thinks she got a look at the man attacking them? She tried to keep Amy in her sight, a leaden ball of fear in her stomach said that if she looked away, Amy might not still be there when she looked back.

"I understand this is difficult for you, Lucy," Christopher begins and Lucy wants to laugh but the sound gets stuck in her throat. Difficult? Difficult was chasing Garcia Flynn. Difficult was hearing that Flynn had gotten away again. Difficult was accepting the fact that her mother was dying of lung cancer. Speaking of her mother…

Lucy's train of thought is derailed when she unexpectedly hears Wyatt's voice. "She almost lost her sister, give her a damn minute." he almost snaps. Lucy's eyes flick over to him, knowing that her gratefulness shows on her face. At a time like this, it's easy for Lucy to forget that Wyatt lost someone: his wife. He knows part of what she's going through and Lucy appreciates the empathy, the understanding. As much as she and Wyatt seem to push each other's buttons, she feels the unexplainable magnetism pulling them towards each other. She thinks he's the only one in this room who can really understand her right now.

"Fine," Christopher speaks up again, and Lucy breaks eye contact with Wyatt to look at her. "We'll talk about this later…unless you want to talk about it now, Lucy?" Christopher tacks the last part on her hesitantly. Lucy knows why, with the way she was yelling at her in the waiting room.

"I just want to go back to the waiting room and wait to hear if my sister is going to pull through," Lucy says tiredly. Christopher nods and Lucy pushes off the wall toward the door of the private room. She walks back down the hallway until she gets to the room where she made a scene. She feels a bit sheepish as she looks around at the others in the room. Some of these people probably have it as though as her right now. Maybe the old man in the corner is waiting to hear about his daughter who was taken here after a car crash. Maybe the man in his late twenties has a wife who is having pregnancy complications. Lucy sits down and is surprised when Jiya plops down next to her. Rufus takes the seat on Jiya's other side and Mason sits next to him. Wyatt sits on the other side of Lucy, the one not occupied by Jiya, and Christopher sits in a row of seats in front of Lucy's, facing another direction.

"Lucy," Jiya whispers, leaning in close. Lucy turns to the woman, seeing the tear tracks on her face. Jiya shed those tears for her; for her and her sister. "do you want to come into the bathroom with me and clean the blood off your hands?" she asks gently.

Lucy looks down at her hands. Her bloody hands. Blood dried underneath her fingernails, into the ridges of her hand and fingers. Her brain throws her back to the house, holding her shirt against Amy's hand and trying to put pressure on the other major wound by using her bare hand. Lucy suddenly feels sick, like she could vomit. Lucy's eyes drift down to her jeans, catching sight of the blood not only on them, but splotched on her hoodie. "Lucy?" Jiya whispers gently, taking Lucy back to her offer. Lucy nods vigorously and Jiya takes her arm to pull her up. Lucy stumbles as she stands and Wyatt's hand lands on the outside of her thigh, ready to steady her.

"You okay?" Wyatt asks, concerned. Lucy shivers from the cold sensation of being treated like she's a piece of radioactive material or a deadly virus and the only beings that can touch her are in hazmat suits. She's nearly convinced she's losing her mind when she sees Wyatt, Jiya, Christopher, Rufus, and Mason wearing said hazmat suits. She shakes her head. She knows why they are doing it. In fact, she appreciates it because if they were treating her normally, Christopher probably would have kept pressing her for answers.

But Lucy hates feeling like this. The pit of helplessness and despair that gut her and suck everything else inside like a black hole.

Inside the analyst part of the FBI, she sits on a throne. A metaphorical one where she's the one who cracked Flynn, the one who put the puzzle together, where she is in her element and she can bring people to justice. She can handle figuring out the inner workings of Garcia Flynn. She cannot handle a doctor telling her that her sister drew her last breath.

"Lucy?" Wyatt's voice cuts through the thicket of the jungle in her brain and she looks down at him, her eyes blurring from a new onslaught of tears. Jiya sees the coming waterworks and helps Lucy toward the bathroom, Wyatt's hand falling off of her thigh.

Lucy tries to support her weight as they head to the restroom. She has a feeling in her gut that Jiya would support her weight, but she shouldn't have to. Despite the circumstances, despite everything; Lucy is a young, confident, strong, determined woman. She dealt with the loss of her father, finally accepted the inevitable demise of her mother, she can pull herself together until she gets news.

Suddenly, water is running from a sink in the waiting room bathroom. Lucy stares around herself almost in shock, she doesn't even remember entering. Jiya walks her in front of the sink, standing beside her while keeping her hand on her arm the whole time. Lucy looks up at her reflection unflinchingly. It can't be worse than what she imagines.

Blood is spattered on her face and dried in her hair. If Lucy didn't know any better, she would say she dyed the tips of her hair blood red. But she does know better. There are lines of blood and a big smear on her right cheek where she held the phone up to her ear and the blood transferred from the screen to her face. Even the tears dribbling from her dark eyes are tainted with the barest of reds. Lucy instinctively lifts her hands to brush away the tears when her hands freeze on the way to her face.

They are covered in blood too.

The rough brush of hospital paper towels momentarily shocks Lucy's system. Her hands fall to either side of the sink as she lets Jiya brush away her tears with the paper towel. "You know it's okay to cry, right? Given everything that's happened to you… it's okay." Jiya says softly, her breath lightly puffing against Lucy's pale cheek.

"No, I've cried enough for today. Besides, it didn't happen to me, it happened to my sister." Lucy whispers, so low that she's sure only God hears her. And she hopes desperately that he's listening, that he'll help Amy.

"She's family," Jiya counters. "what happens to her happens to you." She says. She tosses the paper towel in the trash and wets a new one. She starts gently stroking at the blood on Lucy's face, the cloth coming away rusty.

"She's the one that's fighting for her life." Lucy whispers, her eyes locked on her own in the mirror.

"If she's made of the same stuff you are, she'll pull through." Jiya tells her confidently while tilting Lucy's head to get at some blood behind her ear.

"She's made of stronger stuff." Lucy says, a hint of pride coloring her voice.

"I don't think that's possible." Jiya says. She throws away the stained paper towel and takes Lucy's hands in her own. Flakes of dried blood already pepper Jiya's hands, but she doesn't pull away. She guides Lucy's hands under the water. Both women watch the tinted water spiraling down, down, down, and down the drain. "You're the woman who flagged Flynn days before he made it onto the Most Wanted List. You're the woman who had worked tirelessly to catch him since. You are the woman who has known failure and setbacks and hasn't given up yet. You are the woman who has worked harder and longer in spite of those failures and setbacks. Lucy, you are remarkable. I have no doubt that your sister is too, but I don't think they get much stronger than you. Maybe it's Preston blood. She'll pull through."

Every word steals a little bit more of Lucy's breath. Is that really how Jiya sees her? She doesn't know if what she's saying is true, but every heartbeat tells her that Jiya wouldn't have said it if she didn't think it. Lucy's never really thought about all that she's done or accomplished. All her brain could seem to focus on were the failures, the setbacks, the uncontrollable variables that drove her out of her mind.

But Jiya was wrong about one thing: Amy is stronger than her. She always has been, from the very beginning. She had to pull through.  
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Denise Christopher hates the small, wooden waiting room chair. Everything inside her feels much too large to be contained in her, or a seat this small. She refuses to stand up though. She knows if she does, she'll have to focus on stopping herself from pacing and she simply doesn't have the energy for that.

She hears the bathroom door open and her eyes dart to see Jiya and Lucy exiting, the blood washed from the latter's hands. The small ribbon of guilt worming through her veins stretches and wriggles at the sight of Lucy.

She shouldn't have pushed her for details. Lucy was barely holding herself together, everything written clearly on her face.

That wasn't Denise.

She tried to conceal what she felt inside most of the time. That was part of being a leader: giving her subordinates confidence and guidance even if her stomach roiled and rebelled at the thought of two inexperienced agents in a firing zone. Her job was to stay calm, evaluate the situation, give orders. She did that. And in that private hospital room she wanted to call the FBI and give them a new one: find whoever did this to Amy Preston and make him suffer.

Lucy is more than just a co-worker or subordinate to Denise.

She's a friend.

She's been over to Denise's house for dinner, met her wife and children. She's also been to Lucy's house, met her sister and glimpsed her sick mother.

Denise doesn't shoulder the responsibility she feels about Lucy because she has to: she shoulders it because she wants to.

"Family of Amy Preston?" A female doctor calls out into the waiting room. Lucy is out of her seat and in front of the doctor in a second. Denise pushs herself up and walks over as well.

"I'm Lucy Preston, Amy's sister." Lucy says frantically, desperate for any news on her sister.

"Denise Christopher, FBI, this girl's status is important to the bureau and I need to hear everything you tell Miss Preston." Denise says smoothly, flipping open her badge. The nurse squints at the badge for a few seconds before nodding and looking at the papers on the clipboard in front of her.

"How—how is she?" a tremor shakes Lucy's voice.

"Not good, Miss Preston," The doctor says, shaking her head. Lucy blanches. "She's alive, but the next twenty-four hours are crucial. She lost a lot of blood, so much that she went into Hypovolemic Shock. Hypovolemic shock is also known as hemorrhagic shock, a condition caused by severe blood loss. When enough blood is lost, there is not enough blood in circulation for the heart to be an effective pump. Blood pressure can plummet, organs can start shutting down. All in all, Amy's case of Hypovolemic Shock is critical. We are trying to get blood back into her system, but her blood type is O. Universal donor, but can only receive type O blood for themselves. We're contacting the blood bank to get more type O down here immediately for your sister."

"I can donate blood," Lucy says almost frantically. "my blood type is O."

"That would be an appreciated donation, Miss. Preston, but there is only so much blood we can take from you. Your sister is going to need more blood than you can offer her. But that doesn't even cover Amy's hand. Veins and arteries were nicked, some were more than nicked. This, of course, worsened Amy's blood loss. Not to mention potentially irreparable nerve, muscle, tendon, and tissue damage. If Amy survives, she may never have full functionality of her right hand again. Her left shoulder also received significant damage. The tendon in her shoulder is torn, again the damage could be irreparable. The gash in her shoulder spanned a significant length and requires skin grafts to help us sew it back together again." The doctor explains.

"What about surgery?" Denise asks. "To try and repair the damage in her hand and shoulder?"

"Not possible in her condition." The doctor shakes her head. "We cannot afford any more blood loss by attempting surgery or risk the stem of oxygen circulating her body. Attempting surgery could lead to total organ failure and shut down, which we are not willing to risk. Surgery could be an option in the future if she pulls through and the rest of her body heals. But by then the damage could be irreversible, like how if a broken bone is not set, it will heal in the wrong place. Bones can be re-broken to set, but the same is not possible in Amy's situation. Any damage that is acquired by her body trying to heal itself, or any damage that does not heal, will be permanent. I am so sorry, Miss Preston."

Denise is surprised that Lucy is still standing after hearing all of that. If it were her hearing that about someone in her family, she might have been on the floor. Nothing is more important to her than family. She glances over at Lucy to see the anguish etched across her face and that she is using her arm braced against the wall to hold herself up.

"I'm afraid there's more," The doctor winces apologetically.

"What?" Denise asks tiredly, praying that the next words out of the doctor's mouth are at least about something minor.

No such luck.

"Amy experienced severe head trauma. Hypovolemic shock also affected the circulation of oxygen in her blood and throughout her body. Her blood pressure plummeting worsened the situation. I cannot tell you for how long, but Amy's brain wasn't getting the oxygen it needed when she came in. Her injury is called a Hypoxic Brain Injury; her brain got less oxygen than needed but it was not fully deprived. Unfortunately, the effects of lack of oxygen and complete deprivation are similar. After one minute of oxygen deprivation, brain cells start dying. Of course, Amy wasn't fully deprived of oxygen and other factors come into play such as the blood oxygenation level at the time of the injuries sustained. What I am trying to say, Miss Preston, is that your sister may have sustained brain damage. At this point, it is difficult to tell and we won't know if she has brain damage or the full extent of it until she regains consciousness. And… as far as we can tell, Amy will not be regaining consciousness anytime soon."

"What exactly do you mean by that?" Lucy's voice is strangled.

"Amy is in a coma due to severe head trauma and lack of oxygen to the brain." The doctor gives them the news sullenly.

The wall is no longer enough to support Lucy.  
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Wyatt's not sure what he's doing laying in his bed at home, one arm bent and hand under his head. His mind is still back in that hospital waiting room, still back with Lucy. No reason for his physical person not to be there either. He thinks back to that room, to the team and their brokenhearted analyst.

The doctor had called out for the family of Amy Preston and Lucy moved faster than Wyatt had ever seen her. He was surprised when Christopher pushed herself out of her seat and followed the brunette. Christopher was not one to show many emotions. She was the leader, the one who composed herself, held people together when they couldn't do it themselves. His blood had boiled in that private room when Christopher had been throwing questions at Lucy.

He remembered losing Jessica; the crushing sorrow and overwhelming rage. He saw it reflected in Lucy, knew she needed time to process it. He'd snapped at Christopher, feeling a twinge of sympathy when he saw emotion flash across her face. Christopher didn't show emotion well, she acted instead. That was what she had been trying to do, probably not realizing how she was affecting Lucy. Wyatt barely had any time to dwell on Christopher lapse of emotion because Lucy looked over her shoulder at him. Those devastated dark eyes. But it was the first time since Wyatt got to the hospital that he saw something other than anger or sorrow in her eyes. Those dark orbs thanked him for standing up for her. He didn't want her to look okay. He wanted to make sure she was okay. It was so foolish to think that way. Of course, she wasn't okay. But he wanted to make sure she didn't spiral like he did after Jess died. Except Lucy was smarter than him, a hundred times smarter. She'd probably be fine. At least that's what he told himself.

He'd nearly fallen back into old habits himself, reaching for a bottle of whiskey when he got home after his heavy night. Lucy's face, streaked with tears and yelling in anger stilled his hand. She was going to need the team to catch whoever did this. She was going to need him. Drunk wasn't an option. He retracted his hand and headed straight to bed, trying to push down the pain in his chest without alcohol. Knowing that the ache in Lucy's chest was worse than his somehow made it better. He huffed, staring at the dark bedroom ceiling. He couldn't stop thinking about the hospital, the blood. Lucy.

He remembers raising half out of his chair as Lucy and Christopher talked to the doctor. They were over there for a while.

That was never a good sign.

Then Lucy collapsed. Wyatt darted out of his seat and ran over. Christopher had tried jumping into action awkwardly, not prepared for the situation. She caught the front of Lucy's hoodie, stumbling on the heels from work she still had on, stalling her descent to the ground. Stalling her just enough for Wyatt to get there. His arms went around Lucy and lowered her to the ground gently.

He'd never really thought of her as small or frail. She had literally knocked him over during their first encounter. She had strutted straight to the targets and filled them with bullet holes. Her face was set with fierce determination in the warehouse they searched. Even in the waiting room, she had started yelling at Christopher forcefully. She always seemed like a force. But now as Wyatt held her, it was like the winds of a hurricane had dissipated in the matter of a second.

It was utterly wrong.

Lucy was still conscious when she collapsed, but her eyes weren't focusing on anything. Her body trembled, and the onslaught of tears started again. Wyatt leaned down to her ear, attempting to whisper comforting nonsense. At the sound of his voice, Lucy turned her body into his, curling up and sobbing. Her hands fisted in his shirt. Wyatt stayed there, letting her use him as support, as a shoulder to cry into.

Later, he would register the people around him. The doctor and Christopher talking quietly and worriedly, Christopher's dark eyes darting to Lucy's form every few seconds. Jiya kneeled on the ground right next to her. Her hand was on Lucy's back, rubbing circles. Rufus was on the ground right next to Jiya. He looked a bit at a loss, not sure what to do. Eventually, he just put his hand on Lucy's shoulder, showing her that he was there. Connor stood next to Rufus and looked a bit uncomfortable with the thick atmosphere and emotion. A small seed of resentment bloomed for the man. Couldn't Connor pretend to care? Try to do something? He didn't spare much time thinking about it though. Lucy needed him more than anyone.

Wyatt wasn't counting the minutes they stayed like that. It felt like an eternity. Eventually, Christopher looked down at them, telling them they needed to move, to talk. Wyatt locked blazing blue eyes with Christopher, his voice saying he was only going to move if Lucy was ready. Then he bent down to Lucy, asking her in a soft voice if she was ready to move. She didn't reply, but she uncurled herself and tried standing on shaky legs. Wyatt's arms went to her sides, supporting her as she stood.

Lucy started walking toward the row of seats in the waiting room closest to them. Wyatt's hands slipped off of her waist, Lucy holding her own weight. He couldn't say he was surprised. She was an independent woman, he knew that the second he met her.

It didn't matter to him though. In that moment he didn't care if she was independent or strong. Her sister could be dying in one of the hospital rooms right now. It happened right in front of her eyes. She had a right to fall apart. To lean on someone. But she was used to holding her own and it showed. Wyatt and the rest of the team warily followed Lucy until she crumbled into a waiting room seat, resting her head on her left hand and looking years older than any healthy, young woman should.

Wyatt didn't want to feel this throbbing in his chest, like his heart was bleeding. He didn't want to look at Lucy and see himself falling apart after Jess's death. He didn't want to care. He didn't want to start caring about someone else just to have life rip them away.

He didn't want to leave her either. Christopher's voice brought Wyatt back to the present. "Logan, Carlin, Mason, Marri, you will all go home and get a night of sleep before reporting for duty tomorrow." She ordered.

Wyatt opened his mouth to argue, but Christopher cut him off. "This is non-negotiable, Agent Logan. Lucy stays here, the rest of you leave. Is that understood?" she asked, her eyes stopping on every agent until they gave her a nod of confirmation. Wyatt gave his grudgingly. "Good. Then go. Now." Christopher didn't wait to see if her agents left, turning away and flipping her phone open. Wyatt follows Rufus out of the sliding doors of the hospital. As he leaves he can't help it, he turns around and takes one last look at Lucy.

Wyatt sighs, his dark bedroom ceiling replacing his memories of the hospital and the broken woman there. Maybe he won't get any sleep tonight, but he might as well try. He shuts his eyes, trying to shut out Lucy Preston at the same time. Thinking of her will only lead to a fitful night of sleep.  
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Denise Christopher comes into work at the same time as any other day, bright and early. The dark circles under her eyes or grim lines set into her face aren't unusual either. That's just what happens to a person when part of the world uses their shoulders as a resting place. She doesn't do anything differently, yet she can feel the stares of other agents and hear the whispers. She wishes if someone had something to say or ask, they would just come out and do it. This isn't high school. Even she can't deny that today is different. She feels about a hundred pounds heavier walking up the stairs to her office, every step a tremendous effort.

She'd hoped to keep Lucy's situation under wraps for the moment. Her plan is already shot to hell at 6:15 in the morning. It can't really be helped though. News travels fast. Besides, last night she'd called in agents to stand guard at the hospital, not trusting that the man who did this would stay away. Not trusting that Lucy was safe or the man wouldn't come back and just finish off Amy. Shifts and rounds were established, taking a section of the FBI's forces to protect one of their own. Of course the news wouldn't stay hushed.

The door of her office finally looms in front of her, a welcome sanctuary. If only she could shut herself away all day. But she has a team. One she asked for, one she assembled herself. Denise enters her office and sheds her light jacket looking around the room. It somehow looks different than yesterday.

Probably because she knew Lucy was supposed to be here this morning. She was supposed to be here working on the Rittenhouse corkboard in the closet of Denise's office. She was supposed to be looking like a college professor as she examined evidence, research it, compared it, and pinned up. Her face would be set in determination, and Denise would be fondly and habitually worried about the young woman.

But Lucy was at the hospital waiting to hear if her sister would survive those crucial twenty-four hours.

Denise swallows and turns her back on the closet door. The closet she's come to think of as Lucy's. Her throat feels thick so Denise quickly swallows and jams her emotions into a dusty corner in her brain to be dealt with later. There's not time for that. Not for her. She's the leader, the composed one. She'll grieve for the Preston girls, for her friend Lucy, later when she's home in her wife's arms. Taking a deep breath, she prepares to go downstairs and see her new team.

First things first, Denise extracts her phone from her purse and texts her wife to tell her she's at work and she's fine. Michelle was worried after Christopher's long night. She arranged security at the hospital, talked to the hospital about Amy's treatment and Lucy's mother. Carol Preston was still in her "homemade" hospital room at the Preston residence. Denise sent a few agents and hospital personnel to move her in a private room at the same hospital as Amy. Work and healthcare should cover the brunt of the medical bills, especially because Amy's injuries were directly correlated to Lucy's line of work. After all that, Christopher got home and allowed herself a two-hour power nap before rising for another day of work. Pumping herself full of caffeine wasn't her favorite thing to do, but Denise didn't complain or protest when Michelle shoved a large travel mug of coffee into her hands as she was leaving. Having kids, Denise has pulled long nights and hardly any hours of sleep before. Heavily caffeinated coffee helped her push through the day until she could get home and attempt to catch up on sleep. Denise grabs her cup to take a gulp of coffee before heading downstairs. Before she must take charge and act like she's unaffected by the events of yesterday.  
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Jiya doesn't know what to do. Although, that seems to be the general consensus throughout the team's headquarters. Wyatt sits at his desk, tapping a pen against the open files on his desk but his eyes are riveted on Lucy's corkboards, covered with a white sheet. Rufus has tech in front of him, a prototype to create a smaller and more secure comm for undercover operations. The tech sits untouched in front of Rufus, his brown eyes flicking sadly from his Star Wars cup to Lucy's boards, almost like he's unsure where to look. Mason isn't in the room and Christopher hasn't come down either. There was no field training this morning because everyone knew they wouldn't be able to focus. The only thing people would be able to focus on is the Lucy-sized gap in their group. It doesn't seem to be much better now.

No one here knows Lucy extremely well or personally, well, except perhaps Denise. They all feel acute pain for the young woman and what she's going through but everything else is muddled.

Jiya doesn't even know why they bothered showing up today. This team was assembled specially for the purpose of catching Garcia Flynn and the only one who can tell them where he might be to do said catching was Lucy Preston. Lucy Preston was currently in a hospital about 28 minutes away waiting to hear what her sister's chance of survival was.

Jiya sighs, staring blankly at her computer screen, slouching in her seat. She kind of wants to go back to the tech part of the FBI, where the rooms were dimmed because the computer screens lit up the space, and there was a separate room for physically putting the tech together once you had the design. Where everyone knew computer speak and slang, and challenged each other to video or programming games on breaks. She misses Anthony and Taco Tuesdays. She misses knowing exactly what she was doing and her purpose. She misses her comfort zone. She knows "it's always a good thing to get out of your comfort zone"—courtesy of her mother—but this was only day three on this new team. And look what already happened. They never got the chance to come together and it already felt like they were starting to fall apart. Before Jiya could delve further into that train of thought, Christopher click, clicked her way into headquarters with her usual heels.

"Well, I can see that no one in here's being very productive, so gear up. We're going to a crime scene." She announces. Jiya tries standing up so quickly that she has to catch herself on the desk to keep from crashing to the ground. After getting her bearings, she opens her mouth to ask Christopher exactly where they are going.

Wyatt beats her to it. "Where are we going ma'am?" he asks.

"The Preston household," Christopher states matter-of-fact, leaving no room for argument. "Now gear up and meet me in the garage in 10." With that, the agent clicks out the same way she came.  
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Rufus is strapped into a bulletproof vest, a gun with the safety switched on rests in a hostler at his waist, and he marches toward the garage where Christopher and the rest of his team will be. Coils twist and writhe in his stomach. He's never been to a crime scene before. Only stuck behind a computer. And he knows from seeing Amy that's there is going to be a lot of blood at this crime scene.

That's why he almost simultaneously pukes and jumps out of his skin when a hand darts out and drags him into a corner. Rufus isn't sure what he would have done given more time, but Connor whispers a frantic "it's me," and shushes Rufus before he gets a chance to react.

"Connor?" Rufus hisses. "What the hell? I have to go to the garage; the team is waiting for me!"

"Keep your voice down!" Connor whispers, sneaking glances at their surroundings. "Here," he pulls something thin out of his suit jacket, holding it out to Rufus without looking at him.

"Another recorder!" Rufus whisper-shouts. "No! We are going to Lucy's house to investigate her sister's… attack," Rufus catches himself almost calling it a murder. But Amy Preston's not dead yet. Not as far as he knows. "I won't—I… do you know how wrong that is? I mean, on an investigation, it is a thousand different kinds of wrong. But invading Lucy's privacy and home like that? After what just happened? No way." Rufus can feel the anger rising, filling his veins with blistering heat.

"You think I want to do this? To Lucy? To you?" Connor asks, his dark eyes finally meeting Rufus's, his eyes imploring. "We must do this Rufus. For ourselves and everyone we care about. This is the only way." Connor holds out the recorder expectedly. Rufus eyes it with disdain, wishing he could take it and just stomp it to bits.

"Why do they even want these recordings? What does Rittenhouse even do with them?" Rufus asks. He doesn't really know what he wants Connor to say. Maybe he wants a reason to betray his team, to disappoint his mother. A better reason than threats. Foolish thoughts. Anything Connor could say would just make Rufus want to crush the recorder even more.

"Don't," Connor's voice isn't a whisper anymore, like he doesn't care if anyone spots them anymore. "Don't say that name out loud. Never say that name out loud again." Connor commands, his eyes turning hard and flinty. He takes Rufus's hand and slaps the recorder in it.  
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Wyatt pulls up in front of the Preston residence. It's a big, sprawling house with a green lawn and plenty of space between the neighboring houses, filled with trees and different plants trimmed and framing the house. Wyatt can see Lucy living there, with her silk shirts and polite manners. And with who her mother was. Carol Preston. Wyatt sighs as he spies the crime scene tape encircling the property and the CIA agents swarming around. Courtesy of Carol Preston he imagines. "Absolutely not." Christopher mutters from the passenger seat, with her eyes stuck on the yellow letters labeling the vans and personnel CIA. Her phone goes back up to her ear where it had been glued for nearly the entire ride here. Wyatt doesn't know if it's logistics about the investigation, the team, or if she's being updated on Amy Preston's condition.

Wyatt glances in the rearview mirror to where Jiya and Rufus sit. They both look uncomfortable waiting there to investigate their first crime scene. Well, Rufus's second. That train of thought makes Wyatt want to bang his head on the steering wheel. It's like they're civilians with how little they are prepared for this. His only comfort is that the chances of whoever assaulted Amy coming back here are incredibly slim. He glances back over at Christopher, talking on the phone. He sighs and pulls his gun out of his holster, checking the magazine, checking that the safety is flipped on. He's just finished his inspection when Christopher lowers the phone and throws the door open. "Let's go." She says before placing her first heel on the pavement. Wyatt slips his gun back into his holster, arranging his suit jacket to cover it up. He pushes the door open to see Rufus stumbling out into the street. He contains the urge to roll his eyes at the other man and stomps around to Christopher's side. By the time he's there, Christopher is already walking briskly toward the caution tape staked at the front line of the property. Wyatt jogs to catch up with her when he really wants to get back in the car and drive away.

He doesn't want to go into Lucy's house. He doesn't want to see the blood and he doesn't want to see where it happened. He knows what will happen when he sees it. He'll go back to the night when Jessica and he fought. When he, like an idiot, let her get out of the car. Then took twenty minutes to calm down and come back for her. Twenty minutes. She wasn't there. He called, searched. She didn't come back. He panicked and called the police. He got in front of a screen to beg for his wife's safe return. It consumed him and all it led to was discovering she was dead. The coldness seeped into his bones with the news, and then the anger. It wasn't a burning anger. Instead, it just made him colder and colder and colder. It changed his grief into a mission, a mission to hunt down whoever killed his wife. His amazing, strong, beautiful, loving wife.

He doesn't want to be reminded that Lucy's going through the same kind of thing. He already regrets holding her at the hospital. It seems heartless to think that, but he's not big on showing his emotions. But there, in the hospital, seeing Lucy fall apart made him vulnerable. Made him remember when he fell apart when Jessica died. But there was no one there for him. No one to hold him. So he held her for both of them. He didn't think about how it would feel to hold her in his arms, though. To hold her there, to feel her shaking and sobbing and have something move inside of him.

He's been walking on automatic toward the house until Christopher stops in front of him. He nearly barrels into her, but Rufus's arm darts out and grips his arm, yanking him backward and out of his thought spiral. Christopher reaches into her coat and pulls out her badge, flashing it to the CIA agent standing behind the tape. "FBI," she announces to the agent. "I'm Agent Christopher and I'm here to overtake this investigation." Her voice is full of authority, leaving no room for argument but the agent looks unimpressed. He gestures at another agent close by.

The agent comes jogging up, a middle-aged man with glasses and brown hair, a receding hairline, a developing beard covering the lower half of this face. "What's going on here?" he asks in a gruff voice.

"Agent Christopher with the FBI," Christopher sticks out her hand and the new agent shakes it. "I'm here to take control of this investigation." As soon as the words leave her mouth, the new agent gives a slight cough, a small smile, and looks down.

"Well, Agent Christopher, I'm Agent Neville with the CIA and there will no be taking over of this investigation. This was an attack on the CIA's own." Agent Neville informs then firmly.

"An attack on the CIA's own?" Christopher scoffs.

"Carol Preston was the previous director of the CIA." Neville states.

"I'm aware of that," Christopher says, her tone boarding on annoyance. "But Carol Preston is not active duty. Lucy Preston is. And she's a member of the FBI. This makes it our case." Christopher's voice holds challenge.

"Sorry, Agent Christopher, but the CIA was here first, and we have jurisdiction. Besides, I think it's hard to take over an investigation will only four agents, don't you?" Neville asks, throwing in a jab.

Christopher gives him a tight-lipped smile. "Well, Agent Neville, then you can take that up with your current director because they just handed jurisdiction to the FBI. So please, call your commanding officer, let me give you the news, and then pack up your vans and your people and get out of here." Wyatt's eyebrows creep up to his hair as Christopher talks. He already knew she wasn't a woman to be messed with, but she was usually quite tactful. Especially with superior officers or other organizations. Amy Preston's attack has taken a toll on her, more than she lets anyone see. All Wyatt knows is that he's glad it's Agent Neville on the receiving end of Christopher's wraith.

Agent Neville looks at Christopher doubtfully and with a hint of scorn. Christopher gestures his suit jacket pocket, indicating he should call his commanding officer. He does. Wyatt nearly laughs outright at the man's sour expression as the phone call progresses. He manages to smother his laughter with a smirk. When Neville hangs up the phone, he walks over to the younger agent right behind the tape and leans over to whisper in his ear. The young agent nods and goes to round up the rest of the CIA. They start packing up their investigation and piling into their vans. Neville tucks his phone away and crosses his arms over his chest, looking up at Agent Christopher who has a satisfied look on her face. "You might have managed to get this investigation from us, but we will get it back. Carol Preston is one of our own. The Preston name is the legacy of the CIA." His face is set and lined as he marches away. Christopher doesn't duck under the tape until the last CIA van pulls away from the Preston household.

"Holy cow." Rufus mutters under his breath, leaning in closer to Jiya and Wyatt. "Agent Christopher just went completely badass on the CIA." Wyatt can't help himself from snorting at the comment. He might not know the tech overly well, but it still seems like such a Rufus thing to say. He's not sure if Christopher heard Rufus but a second later she's holding up the tape and striding confidently toward the large house. Wyatt hurries after her, hearing Jiya and Rufus scuttling to follow her.

They march up the walkway and the steps leading to the front door. For a few drawn-out moments, they all stand there, the mood somber. Once they open that door, they know what they'll find. It's Christopher who takes the doorknob and twists, pushing it so that it swings inward with a creak.

The house is empty with a certain chill in the air but Wyatt knows there isn't anything physically there. It's all psychological. To anyone else, they'd look in here and see a house. One that's large with tasteful decorating. Knowing what happened here makes a difference, a big one.

Wyatt steps over the threshold, his whole body urging him to turn around. Directly to the left of the door, a sweeping staircase leads upstairs and the hallway directly in front of them leads to the kitchen. There's an opening directly to the right, a gap in the hallway. Peering in, Wyatt sees what looks like…disconnected hospital equipment, a heart monitor with wires dangling down, not attached to anything. Christopher glances in that direction. "Carol Preston was staying in there, I had her moved to the same hospital as Amy. That room's clear." She states. Her words trigger something in Wyatt's heart, a fissure working its way through the organ. He knew her mother was sick. Everybody knew. But he didn't think about it, not at the hospital. She has no one. He remembers hearing about her father dying a few years back. Now her mother was sick and her sister might die. Wyatt shakes his head, he's here on a mission.

He follows Christopher as she walks down the hallway. It leads into a living room, plush carpeting, fluffy couches, a large flat-screen Tv, and a coffee table in front of one of the long couches. He sees drops of blood staining the carpet, blood that dripped when they were transporting Amy to the ambulance and then the hospital. Craning his neck over his shoulder, he glances the red drops dried on the hardwood of the hallway leading to the door. He hadn't noticed before, but the dark red is much starker against the white carpet. He hears Jiya or Rufus, maybe both, draw in a shaky breath behind him. They're getting closer. He follows the drops with his eyes seeing the path they make. The drops lead through a doorway into the kitchen with a big open area and plenty of counter space for prepping food. His eyes stay on the drops, following them. Faintly, he can hear the click of Christopher's heels behind him, Rufus's dress shoes, and the soft step of Jiya's beat up converse. The drops are fatter and gatherings of them litter the floor as Wyatt approaches another door. This next room is it.

Unknowingly, Wyatt's steps get smaller and smaller, prolonging the time until he steps into that room and is thrown back. He gulps in the threshold before quickly stepping over it. This was ridiculous. He'd been to tons of crime scenes before. He was an operative. He'd seen blood, dead bodies, gore. Some of those bodies being people he'd known, friends. Some of that blood and gore he had put there.

He nudges the door open further until it reveals a dining room. The tile of the kitchen switches to sleek hardwood and a long, polished, wooden dining table takes up most of the space. Why do they have such a big table with only three people in the house, an insignificant voice in the back of Wyatt's mind wonders. He ignores it, focuses on the room instead.

It's a disturbed scene, the CIA investigating before they kicked them out. A large knife coated in blood sits in an evidence bag on the table, the letters CIA glaring and bold from its surface. The event obviously happened at the far end of the table, where the much larger concentration of blood is. His foot stutters as he goes to take the next step. He's internally berating himself for being so scared and emotional when Christopher speaks up. "This is the room it happened," she says, stating the obvious. "Agent Logan and I will take pictures and collect evidence samples. Carlin, Marri, you will find the house's security system and see if it got any video or anything about what happened here."

"Security system?" Jiya asks uncertainly.

"Carol Preston was the previous director of the CIA and Lucy is an FBI agent. They'll have a security system. Look for alarm and video." Christopher orders. Jiya and Rufus step forward to leave the camera and evidence collecting kit on the table before leaving in search of the security system. Christopher picks up the camera, gesturing with her head for Wyatt to open up the evidence kit. He does and pulls latex gloves on over his hands. He pulls out an evidence bag and carefully fits the CIA evidence bag with the knife in it inside. He doesn't transfer the knife, he's smart enough to know that residue from the knife has already gotten on the inside of the CIA bag. He takes evidence samples of the dried blood, moving closer to the other end of the table as he does. When he reaches the opposite end, he sees where the big event took place.

The chair closest to the end of the table is pushed far out…and slathered in blood. The seat cushion is stained scarlet, barely any of the normal color left showing. The back of the chair has lines of dried blood on it from where it dripped. The legs have much more blood on them, almost covered completely in dark red from where the blood flowed when it dripped down, down to puddle on the floor. Looking down at those puddles, still congealing, his stomach turned. No one really knows how much blood is in someone until they're bleeding out in front of you. It seems impossible for that much blood to keep pouring out of a person. But it does. It keeps pouring, and dripping, and running, and spilling. Around the chair are bloody ropes, presumably from where Amy was tied to it. He knows they won't have the full story until Lucy gives an account of what happened. It's the only way to know for sure.

Wyatt steps back to let Christopher get pictures of the scene, mostly undisturbed before he starts to pack it away. As he lifts the ropes to place them in a bag, color catches his eye. It's a shirt, Lucy's shirt. It's the turquoise silk button-down Lucy was wearing to work yesterday. The shirt looks like someone soaked it in blood and only a few turquoise patches peek out. He remembers seeing the alarming amount of bleeding from Amy's hand and shoulder, the blood had soaked right through the gauze as they were wheeling her in. He imagines a desperate Lucy, kneeling on the floor, ripping off her shirt and holding it against Amy's wound to try and staunch the bleeding. He picks up the shirt and seals it into an evidence bag. He works efficiently, trying to shut down his buzzing brain as he does. His methods don't work today and all through his task he's forced to listen to the chatter of his own brain, thinking about Lucy and Jessica and loss.

When he's finished, he assembles a collapsible evidence from the kit and starts packing away everything he's bagged. He hefts it in his arms to carry it out to the van when Jiya and Rufus come bumbling into the room, panting. "We found it!" Jiya exclaims to Christopher, standing there impatiently waiting for them to tell her the news.

"You were right. There was an alarm system and video surveillance, both linked and secured into their home computer system. It's brilliant system really, you can't access it without getting on the home network. It's heavily password protected and encrypted, which we may have done a little hacking to break. We're not going to jail for that right? I mean, hacking's illegal but we're the FBI and sometimes we just have to what we got to do, you know—" Rufus starts rambling.

Jiya cuts him off after seeing the unimpressed look on Christopher's face when Rufus starts getting off track. "We had to hack into the computer, yes, but what we found afterword…it's actually pretty scary. Whoever did this couldn't be alone. Someone from the outside connected to the network and shut off the alarm system so whoever attacked Amy could get in undetected. It hasn't been reactivated since. The video had more encryption, it couldn't be deactivated from the outside. Whoever came in, they might not have been alone. If one person came in, they'd have to have apprehended Amy first, tied her up, and then went back to cut off the video feed and delete what it already recorded. It's far more likely that there were two men. One to get Amy, one to shut off the video surveillance. But they'd still have to delete the footage of them breaking in. Whoever it was, they're good. They didn't just delete the footage. They wiped all memories from the system, from the card, the computer. I don't know if we will be able to recover anything. There is a digital footprint. It's tiny, corrupted, but there. With enough time and resources, I might be able to decode it and maybe, just maybe it'll lead us back to who did this. The one really good thing is, whoever did this, their fingerprints could be on the keyboard." By the end of Jiya's explanation, she was slightly bouncing on her toes, excited at the prospect of being able to catch one of the people who did this.

"You really think they'd be that sloppy?" Christopher questions. "They did all this and you think they'd just leave fingerprints?"

Jiya visibly deflates. "Um… I mean, we can hope, right? Catch one of these guys?"

Christopher evaluates Jiya coolly for a few moments. Then, she slowly nods. "Yes, yes we can hope. Bag the computer and let's get going."  
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Jiya slouches outside of the headquarters' door, waiting to spot Christopher. Ever since returning from Lucy's house, she's been itching to get her hands on that computer, break down that footprint and catch the perpetrators. At least one of them. But Christopher had them wheel it down to the forensic department as soon as they returned. They'll dust for fingerprints, run scans and tests to find any little detail about what happened. Jiya had to admit she was a bit surprised Christopher didn't tell them they were getting a five-minute crash course in forensics and then analyzing the evidence themselves. After all, she was training them so that she could throw them in the field. Inexperienced agents. It made Jiya's heart pound every time she thought about it.

She looks down at her worn Twenty-One Pilots t-shirt, fighting the urge to untuck it and play with the hem for something to do. Looking down at her shirt, it's a testament to what a long day its been. She slept in this shirt and was too tired to change out of it in the morning. She just threw on slacks and a dress suit jacket, tied her converse, and was out the door. The familiar click click of Christopher's heels alerts her to the arrival of her commanding officer. "Agent Christopher!" she calls out to the woman as she starts ascending the steps to her office. "Are they done—"

"Not yet, Agent Marri," Christopher says gently. "I promise that as soon as forensics is finished with the computer, it will be all yours. What you can do now, what you all can do, is go home."

"What? Go home?" Jiya can hardly believe her ears.

"Yes. We've all had a very long day. Forensics won't be done processing the evidence by tonight, I do know that. So go home and get a good night sleep so you can track down the bastard who did this to Amy and Lucy tomorrow, okay?" Christopher phrases it like a question, but Jiya knows better. Briefly, she wonders what would happen if she refuses. Would Christopher call some buff field agents up to throw her out of the building? Somehow, Jiya doesn't doubt that she would.

"Yes, ma'am." She mutters, turning around to go tell the rest of the team to pack it up and go home. She didn't look forward to having to convince Wyatt. That was one stubborn man.  
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Lucy's eyes watched the TV in the waiting room, the colors and voices all blurring together in her perception. She didn't really know what else to do though. She'd been here all day, her butt getting numb from sitting in one of these chairs so long as she waited to see if Amy would last out the first 24 hours. Focusing on the TV was her attempting to shut down her hyperactive brain. Didn't work. She actually spent most the day praying. Lucy was religious, believed in some higher power, in God. Now, she prayed to that higher power to please spare her little sister. She even offered herself in Amy's place if God wanted to take someone to Heaven. Or Hell, but Lucy was hoping she'd earned a spot in Heaven.

24 hours if almost up. At the beginning of those 24 hours, Lucy thought there was no way for life to be more unbearable than it was right now.

Stupid, she was stupid.

Every single hour counting down to those 24 got more unbearable. Every time she saw a doctor walking down the hallway to the waiting room, she couldn't breathe. Every time, they called another name and Lucy's lungs expanded to let oxygen in again.

Lucy had been wallowing in fright and pity between praying for those first four hours. But at about hour two, her wallowing had been interrupted by commotion. A patient was being wheeled into the hospital. That was nothing new, nothing surprising. Except that patient was her mother. A doctor who had wheeled her in came over to Lucy and told her that they had to move her mom from her house due to lack of supervision. She'd be put in a private room and have professional care. All the words seemed to come at her muffled, as if through a curtain. She recalls nodding robotically, the look of sympathy in the doctor's eyes before he left. She had almost opened her mouth to tell them not to bother. Her mother was dying, Amy was still alive. Amy was priority, her mother wasn't.

At about hour five, she noticed the FBI security in the waiting room. They'd probably been there for a lot longer, but Lucy had been too distracted to notice. The moment she sees them, her brain starts whizzing and whirring with all the reasons they could be there. She'd squeezed her eyes shut and massaged her temples, trying to shut her brain off, shut it down, get it to stop working. She'd didn't want to think about why they might be there. All that mattered was Amy.

Somehow, she had drifted off a few times in the past few hours. Exhaustion was weighing on her, but she was too keyed up to stay asleep for more than 45 minutes. Hour 24 was fast approaching, almost here and a couple of hot tears slipped out Lucy's dark eyes as she thought about what the doctor would say; dead or alive. Lucy angrily wiped away the tears. She was so sick and tired of crying. It felt like that was all she did for two hours after Amy was attacked. She sobbed holding her sister, in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, when she got here, and then she even ended up collapsing when the doctor told her Amy was in a coma. She fuzzily recalls Wyatt holding her, and curling up into his warmth. Her face burns hot with embarrassment when she thinks about it, about him and those blue eyes. How is she going to be able to look him in the eyes again? Sure, he was the one who voluntarily caught her and then comforted her, but then she cried into him like a two-year old. Wyatt was a seasoned field agent. He reminded her of a soldier. But not a soldier that went to support groups and talked about his feelings and tried to process them and understand them and heal. Those blue eyes were a damn, holding back a flood of emotions that he kept inside.

Lucy wasn't wired that way. It just made it worse to think that she acted so emotionally with someone that kept it all inside. Someone who she inexplicably felt a connection to. This what not the time to think about Wyatt! Internally, she berated herself. At least he was a safer topic than her repeatedly asking herself, dead or not dead, dead or not dead?

"Family of Amy Preston?" The same doctor who told Lucy about Amy's condition earlier stands next to the check-in desk. Lucy scrambles up from her seat. If Amy had died, they would have told her already. Right? They wouldn't keep that from her. They wouldn't wait for the end of the 24 hours just to tell her that Amy had died hours ago. Please let her live, please let her live, please let her live, she begs.

"Sister," Lucy says breathlessly. "sister of Amy Preston."

"Yes, Miss Preston I remember." The doctor glances down at her chart and then back up at Lucy, her mouth stretching into a smile. "She made it. A few times it seemed like she wasn't going to, but she pulled through. She's alive… for now." The doctor says.

Lucy's knees grow weak at the news. Her face contorts into a smile, a foreign feeling given her last 24 hours, and tears of happiness leak out onto her cheeks. She'll allow these tears because Amy just survived those first critical 24 hours. Lucy Preston's sister is still alive and breathing today. She can cry for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you guys think? Please leave me a comment!  
> I will get the next chapter to you guys sooner.


	4. The Hunt Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy has pulled thorugh the crucial 24 hours and now Lucy is on the hunt for the Garcia Flynn. (I'm sorry, I seem to be really bad at chapter summaries)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with another chapter!  
> Thank you to everyone who left kudos, comments, etc.  
> By the way, did everyone see the deleted scene? The pool one? And then Wyatt tucking Lucy in? I might have died and went to heaven. Anyway, please enjoy!!!!  
> All mistakes are my own.

Lucy is exhausted.

The type of exhaustion that settles down into your body, turning your bones to lead. Cheeks feeling sticky and gross from all her tears, eyes red and dried out. Dried blood on her clothes; dark, conspicuous patches that flake like a sickening snow storm. The hospital staff had offered her temporary clothes, one nurse going so far as to say she had an extra pair of scrubs if she needed them.

She had opened her mouth to say yes, had wanted to say yes, but it came out as a polite no. Lucy was torn. It was a bit twisted, but these clothes were some of the last things to come into contact with Amy, as ruined and bloodstained as they may be. Part of her wanted to shed the clothes as soon as possible and burn them. Another part never wanted to take them off, to fight and claw and spit at anyone who suggested she remove them. She almost wanted to rub her skin against the fabric, inhale that awful, coppery scent as if she could absorb any particles of Amy that had leaked onto the clothes with her blood.

Lucy is exhausted. Exhausted, and conflicted, and the hammer banging away at the interior of her skull isn't helping her either.

More than anything, she hates being a little rowboat haplessly getting tossed around by the colossal ocean waves on all sides.

Control. She needs control. She lives and breathes control.

Now, that little blurry sanctuary of control isn't even visible with the NSA's best surveillance tech.

Lucy slumps down further in her seat, closing her eyes against the harsh waiting room lights. The hammer picks up its pace.

About 2 hours ago, Lucy heard the best news she'll ever hear in her life; Amy made it through the hardest part. But the best news in her life only happened because the worst thing imaginable had. She'd done more crying in the past 48 hours than she ever had. She'd only ever seen the horror of endless buckets of blood through a OCODTF and TV screen. Lucy prays that nothing new comes her way for at least the next 24 hours.

But she guesses that God used up all his goodwill for the day by keeping Amy alive.

The comfort of a mattress. Warmth of blankets. The relief of sleep. Now that those critical 24 hours are over, all she wants is to curl up and forget about all this for as long as she can. She highly doubts that life will be that kind to her. Nightmares are sure to plague her as soon as she drifts off.

It's a moot point anyway. She can't go home. Can't walk through that house, by the kitchen where it happened. If she tries, she knows her empty stomach will shove bile and acid up her throat.

Lucy is so lost in the delirious pain from her headache, wishing to be anywhere but here, that she doesn't hear Agent Christopher the first few times she says her name.

"Lucy." Denise's hand applying gentle pressure is the catalyst that rips Lucy's eyelids open and jerks her into awareness. Sinking into a crouching position, as if addressing her young daughter, Denise proceeds with compassion and caution. "I heard that Amy made it, that's good. I know you don't really want to leave here, but you need sleep. And food. My agents have informed me you haven't eaten anything," a touch of fondness creeps into Denise's voice. She remembers coming down to see Lucy before assembling the team, demanding updates on Garcia Flynn. How Melissa, a fellow profiler/analyst would interrupt their conservation to shove food into Lucy's hands and not go back to work until she ate it. It was one of Lucy's bad habits, that everything including hunger and sleep faded away when she was in the zone of analyzing. And she was always in the zone. Hearing the guard at the door inform her that Lucy has basically starved herself simultaneously worried and endeared Denise.

"Can we add painkillers to the list?" Lucy asks tiredly.

"Headache?" Denise asks quietly. Lucy nods. "Probably brought on by stress and lack of sleep. We'll get you to a bed first and if you still have that headache when you wake up, then we'll get the medicine out, okay?" Lucy nods her confirmation and Denise is sure that she is too tired to argue even if she wants to.

"Where am I supposed to go?" Lucy's voice is little more than a whisper. "I can't go home." She whimpers. Her dark eyes are unfocused, and she sounds so desperate and afraid. Almost childlike. It worms its way straight into Denise's heart, the mother in her reacting ferociously.

"You're right, you can't. Especially because it's a crime scene." Surprise flits across Lucy's face for a brief second, the thought not having crossed her mind in all the other chaos. "I've been making calls all day, trying to find somewhere. I don't have one yet, so you'll be coming home with me." That statement shocks both of them.

Denise hadn't intended to say that, to offer up her home. The plan was to put Lucy into a nearby motel under a fake name with round-the-clock FBI security. A temporary solution until she worked something out.

"I know we have safehouses around here." Lucy murmurs, half question and half statement.

"You know why I'm not putting you in a safehouse." Christopher reminds her sternly.

"Using that logic, isn't this whole thing an incredible risk?" Lucy asks with closed eyes.

"I didn't have any other options; every choice presented a risk. I tried to choose the lowest risk. Besides, only you would question the soundness of my logic with the state you're in."

"My state? I'd say it's pretty good considering the rest of the Preston family is fighting a coma with the potential of waking up to brain damage or never waking up at all, and terminal cancer." Lucy sighs bitterly.

Denise doesn't know what to say for a moment, her mouth going dry and eyes softening. She thinks of Mark, Olivia, and Michelle, each one of them a home, holding pieces of her heart. She can't imagine them laying on a hospital bed, a phantom of who they used to be. "You're right. Now come on, let's get you some rest."  
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The wooden door swings open to reveal Michelle Christopher, faced heavily lined and dressed in pajamas. Denise immediately has the urge to envelop her wife inside her arms, rock her back and forth, place a kiss on her forehead, and promise that she would take care of everything, so Michelle could relax.

But that isn't possible right now. Denise's terrorist is still at large, she's investigating fragments of evidence about a secret cabal organization buried deep into the government, and one of her own was just attacked. Not that Michelle knows any of this. Days like this, Denise can't help but wonder if Michelle wants to know. She's always telling her she doesn't, but then Denise shows up at 3:00 in the morning with Lucy looking like hell with dried blood on her clothes.

One look outside, at Lucy, and Michelle is stepping outside and closing the door firmly behind her. "Denise, what is going on?" every few seconds her eyes flicker to Lucy.

"She doesn't have anywhere else to go right now—" Denise starts, speaking in a hushed tone but fast to say everything she needs to before Michelle interrupts her. Unsuccessfully.

"So she's staying here?" Michelle sounds incredulous.

"Please, Michelle." Denise pleads.

"Denise, you know how I feel about Lucy. She comes over to dinner, she's the only colleague of yours that I know, she helps Olivia with homework, for God's sake. But think of Olivia and Mark. They are inside sleeping right now. Hopefully. Lucy is covered in blood.  
You really want our kids to see that?" Michelle's voice increases in volume the longer she speaks.

"Miche—"

"Denise, they are kids. What they know is their mommy's job is to protect people, and its dangerous. And is that how you want them to remember Lucy?"

"I know that this is complicated." Denise starts. Michelle just gives her a look like No shit, Sherlock. "But she has no where else to go. It isn't permanent—"

"No where else? Denise, I have never asked for the details of your job. I don't want to know. But what I do know is that the FBI has safehouses and measures in place for things like this. If she can't go to one of those places, how safe is it to bring her into our house?" Michelle stops now, a car at a red light waiting for Denise to give her the green light. To tell her that she's not inviting danger into their home, with their children. Denise can't do it. She can only be a stop sign right now. She's ashamed. Ashamed that she can't help Lucy without endangering her family. Angry that there is no solution here where everyone wins.

"I have a FBI security unit on this, they'll be here all night—"

"The fact that they have to be is the problem! That you would even suggest doing this. To our home. To us." Michelle hisses. Denise knows there will be hell to pay for this. Later. It always comes later.

"One night, Michelle. Please. Just a single night, just a bed to rest and then she's out tomorrow. Please." Denise is begging now, and Michelle is the only person she will resort to for that. No one else will ever get her to beg.

"Denise—" Lucy says. Her voice soft but steady. Denise has heard that resolve before, when Lucy is about to do the Lucy Preston thing and tell Denise it was okay. She'd find somewhere. Denise knows she'd rather sleep on a park bench on the coldest night in winter than come somewhere she's not welcome and endanger the people there.

"Lucy, honey, please stay out of this," a river of compassion with a hint of affection flows from Michelle's lips. "This is between me and my wife." Michelle's attention comes back to Denise. Hell to pay. But later. "One night, Denise. One."

"Thank you." Denise whispers. Hell to pay and plenty of groveling. "She needs to shower and get out of those clothes—"

"I'm going inside to make sure Mark and Olivia stay in their rooms. The rest is up to you." Denise feels the gaping black hole in front of her when Michelle stomps back inside the house. It's all her fault. Her fault that galaxies now separate her and the woman she adores. Or Garcia Flynn's. Or Rittenhouse's. Or both. Yeah, they are so going down.  
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A little thing called guilt is chewing its way through Lucy's stomach. Expect that it's not a little thing. And it's already gutted Lucy.

She hates that she's done this to people. Making Wyatt hold her because she couldn't keep it together. Making Jiya wipe the blood off her hands and face because she didn't even know it was there. Making Denise offer up her home and endanger her children.

God, she wants a drink. Numbness has to be better than this.

The last hour is a blur. She remembers snippets: Olivia's innocent voice and Michelle saying, "It's okay, honey. Just go back to sleep and stay in your room until Mommy says". The lukewarm spray of water sliding down her back. Denise telling her she took her clothes for evidence in Amy's case. And then suddenly she was in the guest room.

She won't get under the covers, despite the shivers dancing under her pale skin. It feels wrong. She's an invader. Not to mention that she just knows there are two FBI agents outside the door, there for her protection. They're unnecessary. And a gigantic risk.

Lucy knows, 100 percent, that whomever hurt Amy is not coming back for her. Not anytime soon. He'll give her time before making good on his threat. Not that Lucy will ever let that happen. Dead or behind bars. That's where she's going to put him. Somewhere he can never hurt her sister or anyone close to her again.

The security outside the door is far more dangerous to her than the man who almost killed Amy. Lucy's only hope is that if they take someone out, its only her and not any part of that whole, beautiful family down the hall.

The young woman grunts and curls up on her side. Her back aches from too long in that hospital seat. That pickaxe from earlier hasn't left her brain, but just her luck that her brain decided to kick into overdrive anyway. Now she has to deal with all her guilt and fear on top of this damn staggering headache. And the ache pulsing in her battered heart. Maybe her sleep will be dreamless tonight, as much of a reprieve as alcohol would be. Maybe it's time to let her heavy eyelids win. Just for a moment.

After all, she still has a terrorist to bring down.  
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Denise Christopher's day was shot to hell. Again. For the second day in a row. Very early in the morning.

When she woke up after about two hours of sleep (also for the second night in a row), she did not expect Lucy to be gone. Although, in retrospect, she should have.

This morning settled on her shoulders and tried to crush her. Whispering about the canyon she opened between herself and her wife and that if something had happened to her kids, it would have been all her fault.

Then she discovered Lucy was gone. Just the icing on the damn cake. Better yet, she had to listen to the bumbling of the FBI security agents still lurking about her house. Denise treasured telling them to get out of her house. Lucy wasn't here anymore and Denise surely didn't need them to protect her. Besides, she knew if she didn't, Michelle would have. She would not have their children seeing FBI agents around the house.

After her great morning, Denise makes it to work in record time, and then up to her office in another record. When she gets there, she finds exactly what she thought she would: Lucy Preston. Sometimes Denise sorely regretted giving the younger woman a key to her office.

"How much sleep did you actually get last night?" Denise demands, dropping her purse beside her desk, aiming her question inside her office's 'closet'.

"About as much as you did. Probably less." Lucy replies distractedly. Denise isn't close enough to get a good look at her, but she has the general idea of the wear she'll see. Her cheekbones will be sharper, her eyes haunted, and dark circles will be adorning the place under her eyes. She's wearing professional clothes and for a second Denise worries she went back to her house to fetch them. But she knows Lucy is smarter than that. It was probably an extra pair that she kept in her desk because if Lucy is anything, it's a klutz. The file Flynn left for her is open on the desk next to her Rittenhouse corkboard. The corkboard that only exists because of Garcia Flynn. Because before him, they had never even heard the name Rittenhouse. Which Denise hates. With a burning passion.

"Do you really think that's healthy?" Denise sounds like a disapproving mother now, but it's nothing Lucy isn't used to. Denise walks briskly over to Lucy, dropping two pills in her palm and handing her a bottle of water. Lucy obediently downs the medicine.

"Sleep comes later, after I catch Garcia Flynn." With the words Garcia Flynn, Lucy rams a thumbtack through string connecting one piece of evidence to another. The force rattles the board, propelled by anger and pain and too many emotions. Denise has the urge to remind her to be gentle on the board because it is not actually Flynn's face. Somehow, she doesn't think Lucy will appreciate that.

"You really think Flynn did this?" Their war is now two-sided: Rittenhouse and Flynn. Two opposing sides and somehow, she and Lucy found themselves smack in the middle.

"Who else would it be?"

"The answer is right in front of your face." Denise deadpans. No tiptoeing, no teetering at the edge of the cliff or trying to slowly back away from an agitated wild animal.

Lucy scoffs, "All I know about Rittenhouse is the damn puzzle pieces Flynn has left for me. They would have no reason to… to… hurt Amy."

"I can't quite judge that," Denise snatches the folder from beside Lucy "and I think it's about time I got the full story."  
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Wyatt is well aware that no one wants to be in the shooting range this morning. He might have only had one day of training them for the field so far, but he already knows that Rufus would be more than happy to never enter this room again. His grip on his gun is too tense, too anxious.

Jiya, her face practically screams irritation at having to be here. She had been itching to get her hands on that computer and security system since yesterday. He knows she'd much rather be using her hands on a keyboard than a trigger.

But he has his orders and wishes they would stop complaining. Well, Rufus really. Jiya's face is simply set and she takes her shots without complaint, knowing that the sooner this is over, the sooner she gets to that computer.

He tries really hard too. They are all high-strung, all tired. So he tires really really hard not to snap at Rufus

He fails spectacularly. He actually finds himself wishing Lucy was here so that they could needle each other. To watch her challenge him with that insufferable know-it-all attitude, to see her face flush unexpectedly when she catches him watching her. This all only serves to remind him why he insists on working only with other field agents. Dear god, this day is going to be long.  
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"You still think it was Flynn? You said the man told you to find and kill Flynn. Why—"

"Reverse psychology," Lucy sits in the chair in front of Denise's desk. "think about it. This whole time we've been ahead of him. He always leaves something for me. Always. And it's always Rittenhouse. He obviously wants us to do something about it, to take them down. But we haven't. We've just kept chasing him. He decided that wasn't good enough and sent someone after me. By having them threaten me like that, he wants me to think its Rittenhouse so I go after them instead of him." On this issue, Lucy is insistent, immovable like concrete. Her insides are still twisted up and littered with holes from these past few days and the only reason that the stupid pickaxe in her brain let up is because Denise gave her pain medicine.

Her insides may be twisted, but her words aren't, this issue isn't. This was Garcia Flynn thinking he was smarter than her. This was Garcia Flynn getting impatient and thinking that he could force her hand. The joke was on Garcia Flynn. She's going to make him pay.

"Lucy," Denise's words are sharp, no real barbs and Lucy is sure this might be the fourth time she's tried to say her name. "that seems risky. Using this reverse psychology, there's too much room for error, for misinterpretation."

Lucy is beyond keeping her temper in check. Her hand comes down hard on the desk, the sharp sting of her hand not even registering on her current pain scale. "This. Was. Garcia. Flynn. I know it." Lucy shoves the chair back roughly. "So I am going to go work on this board. His plans are tied to Rittenhouse. I'm going to find out what they are and get there before he does." Lucy declares.  
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Jiya needs to get her hands on this computer. Now. She knows they are supposed to be taking their cues from Agent Christopher, but didn't she say that Jiya would get the computer after Forensics was done with it? She sighs heavily. These past few days, Jiya feels like someone tossed her in the washing machine and then put it on the highest setting possible. In all her time with the FBI, something like this has never happened.

Because she'd been safely tucked behind her computer, with code and algorithms as her constant companions, more than people had been. She'd always thought of the FBI as one big working machine, just with different moving parts. Now she knows that the departments are more like different worlds. And her little, sheltered tech world is already miles away. She doesn't know if she can ever go back after seeing what she has.

Wyatt's irritation and anxiety is a constant presence in the room. She can't really blame him, how is he supposed to protect two or three untrained agents in the field while also trying to take down Flynn? And Lucy. She's seen her sister on a gurney, rushed into the hospital. She's wiped the blood off of Lucy and seen her fall apart. Rufus. He's was a mere acquaintance when they were both techs. There's not much more between them now, but she's heard the slight tremor in his voice in the shooting range, when he imagines actually having to put a bullet through someone. She saw the determination on his face when they found the computer security system at the Preston house. How can she go back to hiding behind her computers after seeing all of this? All the destruction that the other side of the FBI endures?

Answer: she can't. Which feels exactly what she's doing. Trying to engineer better tech for whenever the team goes out again, but lord knows when that will be. She could be trying to get to that digital footprint right now and identify who almost killed Amy Preston. That's what she should be doing, and frankly she's sick of listening to people telling her to wait.

"I'm going down to Forensics to get that computer." Jiya announces suddenly, her voice cracking the silence with all the tact of a whip. Rufus looks up startled, and Wyatt looks unaffected by her outburst. Save for the smirk that pulls at his lips.

"What?" Rufus's brow crinkles.

"I'm going to Forensics to get that computer and trace that footprint." Jiya repeats.

"Great idea," Wyatt stand and strides over to her. "I'll come with you." The glint in his eye makes her wary. But as an agent that is used to constantly being thrown in the field, he probably has nothing better to do anyway. Besides, if Forensics gives her problems, a little extra muscle couldn't hurt. Not that she plans on physically throwing down with the Forensics department. Not really her style.

"No, no, no." Rufus shakes his head his quickly he starts blurring like a cartoon character. "Not a great idea. At all. Agent Christopher has not given us those orders. And we follow Agent Christopher's orders."

"Agent Christopher hasn't given us orders all morning." Wyatt rolls his eyes. "If anything, Agent Christopher would want us being productive, not doing useless things in here." Wyatt and Rufus had rubbed each other the wrong way in the shooting range earlier and Jiya can basically see the leftover tension.

"You know Agent Christopher probably wouldn't have a problem killing us, right?" Rufus asks frantically. "She'd be able to get away with it, too. She'd know where to dispose of our bodies, establish an alibi—"

"If she hasn't killed me yet, she's not going to." Wyatt cuts in. Then he's out the door and Jiya's left to scurry after him.  
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Wyatt's not afraid of locking horns with Agent Christopher. It's at least a weekly activity for him, quickly becoming a daily habit. So down to Forensics he goes. He has nothing better to do anyway. Sitting behind a desk and making up field training schedules is mindless, boring, and pretty useless. Everyone has general training until they need to become individualized sessions. He won't be able to develop individual schedules until he evaluates their current skill level and how far he can take them as a group. Besides, Wyatt's a man of action. Sitting behind a desk is not something he does well. Especially not when he can actually be doing something.

Finding Amy Preston's attacker is a worthy cause. The drive to finding the perpetrator gnaws at him and whispers in the back of his mind. It whispers that the only reason he wants it so bad is because of Jess. He couldn't find Jess's killer, and he's trying to atone by finding Amy's would-be killer. He really hates those voices in his head. The ones that urge him to find solace in a bottle or cradle Lucy on a hospital floor. He hasn't given up on finding Jessica's killer, so the voices are wrong. Plain and simple.

This line of thinking prompts him to push the elevator button harder than necessary. He's been doing everything harder than necessary today. Jiya doesn't say a word to Wyatt, a fact he is extremely grateful for. If it was Rufus in here with him, the man would still probably be rambling about what a bad idea this is and how Christopher will kill them.

The elevator door dings open. Wyatt steps out and the glass doors to the Forensics division open for him and Jiya. He walks in and spots a familiar face, a guy he knows from when he consulted for Delta Force Zero. Jerry. That's his name.

Jerry looks up as the doors open. The look in his eyes changes from normal to resigned in a spilt second, like he knows these next few minutes are going to be difficult for him, and Wyatt has the urge to laugh derisively. "Wyatt," he greets with a nod. "I know what you're here for—" he starts.

"Yeah, and I know that you'd be one of the people working on it. Where's the evidence from the Preston case?" he's impatient and they don't have time for this.

"It takes longer than one night and morning—" Jerry starts again, the frustration in his tone rising to match Wyatt's. An impressive feat if he ever saw one, but that's what he does to people.

"The computer," Jiya interrupts him this time. "that's all we need. The computer." Jerry's gaze falls on her for the first time, and his face is crinkled with confusion as if he didn't know she was there before that moment. "I'm Agent Jiya Marri." Jiya introduces when she sees the look on his face. She sticks her hand out to shake and Jerry takes it with a brisk introduction of his own. His eyes flick between the two of them, frustration warring with curiosity.

"Well?" Wyatt snaps in question when Jerry's silence continues too long for his liking.

"Look," Jerry says, his anger back in full force as it pushes out the curiosity. He pinches the bridge of his nose with his hand. "even if I wanted to, Agent Christopher has to sign off on it."

"Then call her office." Jiya demands. Jerry's shoulders shake with laughter at Jiya's demand.

"No, I will not be calling Agent Christopher." He says, mirth in his voice.

"Why not?" Wyatt growls, fighting the onset of desire to punch Jerry. Just once.

"She's up there with Agent Preston. I'm not getting in the way of that."

Wait, what? Wyatt's clenched fist relaxes as he and Jiya share a look of surprise. Lucy's here? Jerry picks up on their confusion.

"You guys didn't know? But, we're you guys assigned to some super-secret task force with her?" And with that comment, Wyatt wants to sock Jerry again. Maybe more than once. The look on Wyatt's face must convey this as Jerry's hands fly up defensively. "Look, all I know is what I've heard. Stuff travels fast. Especially… that kind of stuff. And especially when it's a Preston."

"What have you heard?" Jiya demands quickly.

"I heard that she came into work, really, really early. In pajamas, looking pretty much as you'd expect her to," Wyatt gives Jerry an unamused look, not in the mood to try and dissect whatever "as you'd expect her to" was. "Hell. It means she looked like hell. She went into the file room you guys have converted into your top-secret lair or whatever, and then up to Agent Christopher's office. Hasn't come down since and Agent Christopher's gone up. So yeah…not getting in the middle of that." Jerry concludes.

"Yeah, well. I need that computer, so I'm going to need you to." Jiya's voice is all steel and confidence, her olive arms crossed over her Twenty-one Pilots t-shirt (wasn't she wearing that yesterday?). Wyatt feels a wave of respect for this woman washing over him.

"What?"

Jiya steps closer to Jerry, as if it would help him hear her better when he understood her perfectly the first time around. "I came down here to get that computer and that is exactly what I intend to do. So you're going to call Agent Christopher." Wyatt just smirks in the background as Jerry squirms and reluctantly picks up the phone.  
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"You didn't tell me it was a dinosaur." Mason mutters, the sound of a keyboard clacking echoing through headquarters. Rufus sighs from his place next to Mason and Jiya is crunched close enough to see the screen on Mason's other side. They've been trying to trace the digital footprint for hours, with little to no avail. Jiya tried, he tried, and then they called Mason. When Mason entered the room and saw the actual computer, Rufus swears he was about to faint. "You'd think the former director of the CIA would have more advanced technology protecting her house." He mutters again.

"But that's the genius of it." Jiya interjects. She's been defending this system and its brilliance for all the hours they've had it. Rufus agrees with Mason. Well, he sees Jiya's point but he just wants a modern computer right now. Ergo, he agrees with Mason. "It's an outdated computer with a state-of-the-art modern security system. Do you know how many modifications and adjustments had to be made? It's perfect. A combination of new and old that only the owner could know how to navigate."

"Apparently not." Mason counters. "someone got in here, didn't they? She's not as clever as she thought she was, Carol Preston."

"Hacking into it and the firewall were actually pretty easy," Jiya says, ignoring Mason's earlier comment. "the security system part was modern enough that it was navigable to Rufus and I, someone familiar with new technology. But when we got it down to the footprint—"

"You started getting into the outdated part of the system, the part you didn't know." Mason finishes.

"That's why we called you." Rufus says, and Mason turns his head to give him a well, duh look. A look which Rufus did not need today. His is already going bad enough, thank you very much. The only plus side was that apparently Agent Christopher is not going to kill them for the computer. She actually came down to Forensics to sign off on it going into Jiya's hands. According to Wyatt, she was only one notch more irritated, stern, and stoic than usual. So yay, there's that.

The sound of keys replaces their voice as they all watch Mason work, their eyes devouring the screen for a hint of a breakthrough. Mason works for twenty more minutes, seemingly just as unsuccessful as they were when Wyatt pipes up.

"Come on, one of you has to be able to crack that." When Rufus looks over, he's leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest. His face is set in a stern expression and Rufus can't believe how much he resembles an A-grade jackass in this moment in time.

"You want to try it?" Rufus snaps.

Wyatt's eyes narrow (and seriously, why the hell did the dude have to have the most piercingly blue eyes that made glares a thousand times more noticeable and effective?). "No, but I think that our resident geniuses, who are here for reasons like this, would be about to figure it out." Wyatt bites rights back.

Rufus is opening his mouth to throw some scalding water back at the Delta Force Zero operative when Mason's resigned sigh and silent "bloody hell" captures his attention. "What?" Jiya jumps in before Rufus gets the chance.

"I work with, engineer, and design state of the state-of-the-art technology myself. Not whatever bloody ancient mess this is." Mason glares at the screen as if it was the computer's fault that Mason couldn't crack it.

"What about Anthony?" Jiya exclaims as she springs out of her seat, her voice simmering with excitement and booming around the room.

"Anthony?" Rufus stands up slowly, thinking about the white-haired man that had sent him to pick up the tacos on Taco Tuesday just last week. "Jiya! You're a genius! If anyone would know this outdated technology, it would be him!" Jiya absolutely beams with the praise and Rufus can't help the little, shy smile that creeps up onto his face. He's always been too nervous to approach Jiya, much less talk to her. But if that's the reaction he gets, he'll say things to her more often. But who is he kidding? He's Rufus, he'll be sticking his foot in his mouth or stammering like an idiot the next time he speaks to her.

"I'm afraid that's not possible."

Huh? And just like that, his and Jiya's bubble of hope is burst. "What? Why?" Jiya cries indignantly.

"Anthony's gone missing. He's went missing the first day you were with this team, three days ago." Mason confesses, looking down and shoving his hands in the pockets of his slacks.

"What?" Rufus asks, breathless, uncomprehending of the fact that somehow Anthony is gone. Uncomprehending that Anthony's been gone for three whole days and he's just finding out about it. "Why are we just finding out about this? Why weren't we told earlier? Anthony is my friend!"

"I know, I know!" Mason shouts, finally looking up into Rufus's devastated face. "Agent Christopher ordered me not to tell you."

"And for a good reason." Agent Christopher says, closing the door behind her although no one had heard or seen her enter. Except maybe Wyatt. The disconcerting click-clack sound of her heels trails behind her and she marches in their direction. She steps in front of Mason. "You've done enough here today, Agent Mason. You can head back to your science and technology division." Mason stands there a second longer, his face hardening as he and Christopher face off. Then, he sidesteps the woman and leaves the room. Christopher watches him the whole way out before turning back to them.

"We had a right to know." Rufus whispers. He doesn't feel afraid or intimidated by Agent Christopher right now. He just feels angry. An anger he is sure is justified. Anthony was more than just a co-worker. He was a friend. Rufus had met his wife and kids.

"I needed you focused and on-task, not worried about Agent Bruhl. I'm taking care of it." Agent Christopher says calmly.

"Taking care of it? How?" Rufus asks.

"Yes, I am taking care of it Agent Carlin and I'm not at the liberty to say how right now. We have a lot of problems on our plate right now, Anthony Bruhl being just one of them. Your job at the moment, both of you, is decrypting that footprint."

"Anthony was our way of decrypting the footprint." Jiya says her first words since Christopher entered the room, looking equal parts furious and sullen.

"Well, you're going to have to figure out how to do that without him here. I chose you two for a reason, show we what that was." And with that she's marching back towards the door.

"Wait!" Jiya calls and Agent Christopher pauses. "What did you come down for?"

"To check the progress on that footprint. So get it done." The next sound is the opening and closing of the door as their commanding officer departs.

"What did I tell you?" Wyatt crows with that stupid smirk back on his lips. "She won't kill you, she'll just make your life hell. That's one difficult woman." And he laughs.  
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Lucy's world had shrunk to the size of this corkboard in this tiny closet. Every single phone call Denise has made or received all day has been background noise. Lunch became a secondary thought. The need for sleep and acknowledgement of pain, mental and physical, was shoved aside and deemed as unnecessary.

There has to be something here. There has to be. Flynn's been dropping her all these Rittenhouse clues, dangling yarn, playing a game of cat and mouse. There's a reason.

He's trying to do something. To reveal this corrupt cabal organization. But why? She told Denise it was so that they would take them down. But she knows that's only one part of it. It's a puzzle and Lucy is either seeing only the big picture or the little picture. The biggest problem is that she doesn't know which one she's seeing.

Apprehension overwhelms Lucy and creeps under her skin. She's on the cusp of something, right on the edge and about to nosedive over. But she's missing it. What is it? Come on, come on, come on, just think. Just think. Figure it out.

Rittenhouse. Garcia's Flynn's biggest enemy. The people he wants to wipe out.

Lucy Preston. Her. The analyst that flagged Garcia Flynn as a terrorist, who endlessly dedicated herself to studying him inside and out. The woman who thinks she knows him and can eventually bring him down. The little government agent he toys with.

But it's more than that. Lucy feels it in her blood, in her gut instinct. It's more than a game. He wants something from her. But what?

There has to be something here. Something that connects to all of it: Rittenhouse, him, and herself. Come on, come on, come on.

It's here. Right in front of her face. So she looks. She looks at what's right in front of her face.

An airplane. No. Not a normal airplane. Which airport is that? There's something. Something just at the back of her mind, vying for recognition and remembrance. What is—

No. Ice douses Lucy as her eyes widen. Her eyes flick over the board and find every face she's afraid she would. She knows what his plans are. She knows where he's going to be. She has to stop him.

"Agent Christopher." Lucy croaks, stunned. She doesn't hear. "Agent Christopher." Lucy croaks only slightly louder, but it somehow does the trick.

"What?" she asks on high alert, suddenly right next to Lucy.

"I know." Lucy whispers, eyes stuck to the board. "I know what Garcia Flynn is planning. I know where and when Garcia Flynn is going to be. And I know that we have to stop it."


End file.
